Introduction:
Puerto Rican adults living on the US mainland tend to have poor quality diets and adverse cardiometabolic risk. Plasma metabolomic signatures reflect dietary intakes and variability in metabolic response to diet.
Hypothesis:
A plasma metabolomic signature reflecting adherence to the American Heart Association (AHA) dietary guidelines will be associated with cardiometabolic risk.
Methods:
We used LC/MS to measure plasma metabolites (>700) among Boston Puerto Rican Health Study participants, aged 45-75 years, without (n=252) and with (n=254) type 2 diabetes (T2D). We calculated a modified version of a previously validated AHA diet score (AHA-DS), which included variety and amounts of fruits/vegetables, whole grains, fish, saturated fat,
trans
fat, sodium, and added sugars. We used elastic net regression to identify a metabolomic signature that associated with higher adherence to the AHA-DS among those without T2D (training set) and replicated the associations among those with T2D (testing set). A metabolomic score was calculated as the weighted sum of the diet associated metabolites. We used general linear models to determine the cross-sectional associations between the AHA-DS, metabolomic score, and cardiometabolic risk factors.
Results:
A diet-associated metabolomic signature with 58 metabolites, primarily lipids and amino acids, was identified. This metabolomic score correlated moderately with the AHA-DS among those with and without T2D (r=0.42-0.46,
P
<5.7x10
-12
). In all participants (n=506), the metabolomic score, but not the AHA-DS, was significantly associated with higher HDL-C and LDL-C concentrations, and lower waist circumference (
P
<0.004; Table 1). No associations were observed for triglyceride concentrations, glycemia measures, or blood pressure.
Conclusions:
In individuals of Puerto Rican descent, we identified a metabolomic signature that reflected adherence and metabolic response to the AHA dietary guidelines and that associated with cardiometabolic risk factors.
Higher Adherence to a Diet Score Based on American Heart Association Recommendations Is Associated with Lower Odds of Allostatic Load and Metabolic Syndrome in Puerto Rican Adults
