title: Circulating and dietary α-linolenic acid and incidence of congestive heart failure in older adults: the Cardiovascular Health Study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Few studies have evaluated the association between the n-3 fatty acid α-linolenic acid (ALA) and the incidence of congestive heart failure (CHF).
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  We investigated whether plasma phospholipid concentrations and estimated dietary consumption of ALA are associated with incident CHF.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used data from the Cardiovascular Health Study, a prospective cohort study of cardiovascular diseases among adults aged ≥65 y, from 4 US communities. A total of 2957 participants free of prevalent heart disease and with available fatty acid measurements were included in biomarker analyses (30,722 person-years and 686 incident CHF events). A total of 4432 participants free of prevalent heart disease were included in dietary analyses (52,609 person-years and 1072 events). We investigated the association of ALA with incident CHF by using Cox regression.
  
  
  RESULTS
  After adjustment for age, sex, race, education, smoking status, BMI, waist circumference, and alcohol consumption, plasma phospholipid ALA was not associated with incident CHF (HR for the highest compared with the lowest quartile: 0.97; 95% CI: 0.79, 1.21; P-trend = 0.85). Likewise, dietary ALA was not associated with incident CHF (adjusted HR for the highest compared with the lowest quartile: 0.96; 95% CI: 0.82, 1.20; P-trend = 0.97). We observed no association of biomarker or dietary ALA with nonvalvular CHF subtype. We also found little evidence of an association between ALA and CHF in subgroups based on age, sex, diabetes, fish consumption, BMI, or FADS2 genotype (rs1535).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  ALA intake is not associated with incident CHF in older adults. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT00005133.
authors: Cardiovascular Health Research Unit, Department of Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, 98101, USA. rozenl@u.washington.edu
authors: Rozenn N
authors: RN
authors: Lemaitre
authors: Colleen
authors: C
authors: Sitlani
authors: Xiaoling
authors: X
authors: Song
authors: Irena B
authors: IB
authors: King
authors: Barbara
authors: B
authors: McKnight
authors: Donna
authors: D
authors: Spiegelman
authors: Frank M
authors: FM
authors: Sacks
authors: Luc
authors: L
authors: Djoussé
authors: Eric B
authors: EB
authors: Rimm
authors: David S
authors: DS
authors: Siscovick
authors: Dariush
authors: D
authors: Mozaffarian
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D015415:Biomarkers / Q000097:blood; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D004032:Diet; D044943:Fatty Acid Desaturases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D020641:Polymorphism, Single Nucleotide; D015995:Prevalence; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D012907:Smoking; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D017962:alpha-Linolenic Acid / Q000008:administration & dosage* / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000097:blood
chemical_list: D015415:Biomarkers; D017962:alpha-Linolenic Acid; D044943:Fatty Acid Desaturases; C533241:FADS2 protein, human