Habitual consumption of long-chain n–3 PUFAs and fish attenuates genetically associated long-term weight gain. Issue 3 (9th January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Huang, Tao; Wang, Tiange; Heianza, Yoriko; Zheng, Yan; Sun, Dianjianyi; Kang, Jae H; Pasquale, Louis R; Rimm, Eric B; Manson, JoAnn E; Hu, Frank B; Qi, Lu
• Is Part Of: American journal of clinical nutrition. Volume 109:Issue 3(2019)
• Page Start: 665
• Page End: 673
• Publication Date: 2019-01-09
• Subjects: n–3 polyunsaturated fatty acids -- fish -- weight gain -- gene–diet interaction -- genetic association; Diet therapy -- Periodicals; Nutrition -- Periodicals; Dietetics -- Periodicals; 613.205
• DOI: 10.1093/ajcn/nqy238
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0002-9165

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Background: A growing amount of data suggests that n–3 (ω-3) polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) intake may modify the genetic association with weight change. Objectives: We aimed to prospectively test interactions of habitual consumption of n–3 PUFAs or fish, the major food source, with overall genetic susceptibility on long-term weight change. Design: Gene–diet interactions were examined in 11, 330 women from the Nurses' Health Study (NHS), 6773 men from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS), and 6254 women from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI). Results: In the NHS and HPFS cohorts, food-sourced long-chain n–3 PUFA intake showed directionally consistent interactions with genetic risk score on long-term changes in BMI ( P -interaction = 0.01 in the HPFS, 0.15 in the NHS, and 0.01 in both cohorts combined). Such interactions were successfully replicated in the WHI, an independent cohort ( P -interaction = 0.02 in the WHI and 0.01 in the combined 3 cohorts). The genetic associations with changes in BMI (in kg/m 2 ) consistently decreased (0.15, 0.10, 0.07, and −0.14 per 10 BMI-increasing alleles) across the quartiles of long-chain n–3 PUFAs in the combined cohorts. In addition, high fish intake also attenuated the genetic associations with long-term changes in BMI in the HPFS ( P -interaction = 0.01), NHS ( P -interaction = 0.03), WHI ( P -interaction = 0.10), and the combined cohorts ( P -interaction = 0.01); and the differences in BMI changes per 10 BMI-increasing alleles were 0.16, 0.06, −0.08, and −0.18, respectively, across the categories (≤1, 1∼4, 4∼6, and ≥7 servings/wk) of total fish intake. Similar interactions on body weight were observed for fish intake ( P -interaction = 0.003) and long-chain n–3 PUFA intake ( P -interaction = 0.12). Conclusion: Our study provides replicable evidence to show that high intakes of fish and long-chain n–3 PUFAs are associated with an attenuation of the genetic association with long-term weight gain based on results from 3 prospective cohorts of Caucasians.