Effect of dietary fat intake and genetic risk on glucose and insulin-related traits in Brazilian young adults

Sooad Alsulami; Nathália Teixeira Cruvinel; Nara Rubia da Silva; Ana Carolina Antoneli; Julie A Lovegrove; Maria Aderuza Horst; Karani Santhanakrishnan Vimaleswaran

doi:10.1007/s40200-021-00863-7

Effect of dietary fat intake and genetic risk on glucose and insulin-related traits in Brazilian young adults

J Diabetes Metab Disord. 2021 Aug 13;20(2):1337-1347. doi: 10.1007/s40200-021-00863-7. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Food and Nutritional Sciences, Hugh Sinclair Unit of Human Nutrition, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6DZ UK.
² Department of Clinical Nutrition, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
³ Nutritional Genomics Research Group, Faculty of Nutrition, Federal University of Goiás (UFG), Goiania, Goiás, Brazil.
⁴ Institute for Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research, University of Reading, Reading, UK.
⁵ Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health, University of Reading, Reading, UK.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Purpose: The development of metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes (T2D) is closely linked to a complex interplay between genetic and dietary factors. The prevalence of abdominal obesity, hyperinsulinemia, dyslipidaemia, and high blood pressure among Brazilian adolescents is increasing and hence, early lifestyle interventions targeting these factors might be an effective strategy to prevent or slow the progression of T2D.

Methods: We aimed to assess the interaction between dietary and genetic factors on metabolic disease-related traits in 200 healthy Brazilian young adults. Dietary intake was assessed using 3-day food records. Ten metabolic disease-related single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were used to construct a metabolic-genetic risk score (metabolic-GRS).

Results: We found significant interactions between the metabolic-GRS and total fat intake on fasting insulin level (P_interaction = 0.017), insulin-glucose ratio (P_interaction = 0.010) and HOMA-B (P_interaction = 0.002), respectively, in addition to a borderline GRS-fat intake interaction on HOMA-IR (P_interaction = 0.051). Within the high-fat intake category [37.98 ± 3.39% of total energy intake (TEI)], individuals with ≥ 5 risk alleles had increased fasting insulin level (P = 0.021), insulin-glucose ratio (P = 0.010), HOMA-B (P = 0.001) and HOMA-IR (P = 0.053) than those with < 5 risk alleles.

Conclusion: Our study has demonstrated a novel GRS-fat intake interaction in young Brazilian adults, where individuals with higher genetic risk and fat intake had increased glucose and insulin-related traits than those with lower genetic risk. Large intervention and follow-up studies with an objective assessment of dietary factors are needed to confirm our findings.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40200-021-00863-7.

Keywords: Brazil; Fat intake; Genetic risk score; Gene–diet interaction; Metabolic traits.