Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institute, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden.
Faculty of Health and Social Services, School of Nutrition and Dietetics, Kanagawa University of Human Services, Yokosuka 238-8522, Japan.
Nutrients. 2021 Oct 9;13(10):3539. doi: 10.3390/nu13103539.
Observational studies have suggested that fatty acids such as higher levels of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) may prevent frailty. By using Mendelian randomization analysis, we examined the relationship between fatty acids and frailty.
We used summary statistics data for single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with plasma levels of saturated fatty acids (palmitic acid, stearic acid), mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) (palmitoleic acid, oleic acid), n-6 PUFAs (linoleic acid, arachidonic acid), and n-3 PUFAs (alpha-linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid, docosapentaenoic acid, docosahexaenoic acid), and the corresponding data for frailty index (FI) in 356,432 individuals in the UK Biobank.
Although there were no robust associations on the MUFAs or the PUFAs, genetically predicted higher plasma stearic acid level (one of saturated fatty acids) was statistically significantly associated with higher FI (β = 0.178; 95% confidence interval = -0.050 to 0.307; = 0.007). Such a relationship was also observed in a multivariate MR (β = 0.361; 95% confidence interval = 0.155 to 0.567; = 0.001). Genetically predicted higher palmitic acid was also significantly associated with higher FI (β = 0.288; 95% confidence interval = 0.128 to 0.447; < 0.001) in the multivariate MR analysis.
The present MR study implies that saturated fatty acids, especially stearic acid, is a risk factor of frailty.
观察性研究表明，多不饱和脂肪酸（PUFAs）等脂肪酸水平较高可能预防虚弱。通过使用孟德尔随机化分析，我们研究了脂肪酸与虚弱之间的关系。
我们使用了与血浆饱和脂肪酸（棕榈酸、硬脂酸）、单不饱和脂肪酸（棕榈油酸、油酸）、n-6PUFAs（亚油酸、花生四烯酸）和 n-3PUFAs（α-亚麻酸、二十碳五烯酸、二十二碳五烯酸、二十二碳六烯酸）水平相关的单核苷酸多态性的汇总统计数据，以及 356432 名英国生物库个体的虚弱指数（FI）的相应数据。
尽管 MUFA 或 PUFA 没有明显的关联，但遗传预测的较高血浆硬脂酸水平（饱和脂肪酸之一）与较高的 FI 呈统计学显著相关（β=0.178；95%置信区间=-0.050 至 0.307；=0.007）。在多变量 MR 中也观察到了这种关系（β=0.361；95%置信区间=0.155 至 0.567；=0.001）。遗传预测的较高棕榈酸也与较高的 FI 显著相关（β=0.288；95%置信区间=0.128 至 0.447；<0.001），在多变量 MR 分析中。
本 MR 研究表明，饱和脂肪酸，特别是硬脂酸，是虚弱的一个风险因素。
