Fish intake and venous thromboembolism: a Danish follow-up study

Abstract

Introduction: Data on the association between fish intake and venous thromboembolism (VTE) is sparse and inconsistent.

Objective: To investigate whether intake of total, lean or fatty fish is associated with development of incident VTE.

Material and methods: This study is based on the Danish follow-up study Diet, Cancer and Health including 27,178 men and 29,876 women aged 50-64 with no history of cancer. Participants were included between 1993 and 1997 and followed through 2006. Information on fish intake and potential confounders was obtained from baseline questionnaires. The outcome was incident VTE (all) and idiopathic VTE. We used Cox proportional hazard models with age as time axis. Separate analyses were performed for men and women. Adjustment was made for BMI, smoking, physical activity, energy intake and women's use of hormone replacement therapy.

Results: During follow-up, 641 incident VTE events were verified. We found no association between total fish intake and VTE, but moderate intake of fatty fish was associated with a statistically non-significant 20-40% lower risk of idiopathic VTE compared with consumption of a low intake (less than 8g) of fatty fish per day.

Conclusions: Intake of neither total nor fatty fish was statistically significantly associated with the incidence rate of VTE. However, intake of fatty fish may be associated with a reduction of the risk of idiopathic VTE.

Keywords: fatty fish; follow-up study; lean fish; venous thromboembolism (VTE).