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This Omega-6 Fatty Acid May Help Prevent TD2
Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol; ePub 2017 Oct 11; Wu, et al
An omega-6 fatty acid biomarker appears to help prevent type 2 diabetes, according to a pooled analysis of 20 prospective cohort studies involving nearly 40,000 individuals. A second biomarker was found to have no impact. Participants ranged between ages 49 and 76 years, had a BMI between 23.3 and 28.4 kg/m2, and did not have diabetes at baseline. Investigators looked at diabetes risk for each cohort and by lipid compartments separately, relative to serum linoleic and arachidonic acid levels. Among the results:
- There were 4,347 cases of type 2 diabetes.
- Higher proportions of linoleic acid biomarkers were linked with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes overall.
- The links between linoleic acid biomarkers and type 2 diabetes were generally similar in different lipid compartments.
- Arachidonic acid biomarker levels were not significantly linked with type 2 diabetes risk overall.
- The links were not significantly altered by factors such as age, BMI, sex, race, aspirin use, omega-3 PUFA levels, and FADS gene variants.
Wu J, Marklund M, Imamura F, et al. Omega-6 fatty acid biomarkers and incident type 2 diabetes: Pooled analysis of individual-level data for 39 740 adults from 20 prospective cohort studies. [Published online ahead of print October 11, 2017]. Lancet Diabetes Endocrinol. doi:10.1016/S2213-8587(17)30307-8.