Circulating fatty acids and risk of hepatocellular carcinoma and chronic liver disease mortality in the UK Biobank.

ABSTRACT

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR)-based plasma fatty acids are objective biomarkers of many diseases. Herein, we aim to explore the associations of NMR-based plasma fatty acids with the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and chronic liver disease (CLD) mortality in 252,398 UK Biobank participants. Here we show plasma levels of n-3 poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and n-6 PUFA are negatively associated with the risk of incident HCC [HRQ4vsQ1 0.48 (95% CI 0.33-0.69) and 0.48 (95% CI 0.28-0.81), respectively] and CLD mortality [HRQ4vsQ1 0.21 (95% CI 0.13-0.33) and 0.15 (95% CI 0.08-0.30), respectively], whereas plasma levels of saturated fatty acids are positively associated with these outcomes [HRQ4vsQ1 3.55 (95% CI 2.25-5.61) for HCC and 6.34 (95% CI 3.68-10.92) for CLD mortality]. Furthermore, fibrosis stage significantly modifies the associations between PUFA and CLD mortality. This study contributes to the limited prospective evidence on the associations between plasma-specific fatty acids and end-stage liver outcomes.