The relationship between low-fat diets and telomere length among US adults: nationwide cross-sectional study.

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that low-fat diet (LFD) is associated with various health benefits, and that lipid and fatty acid metabolism are linked to telomere shortening. However, no epidemiological studies have examined the association between LFD and telomere length (TL). Dietary information was collected using 24-hour recalls among 6,981 adults from a nationwide cross-sectional study. Diet quality was assessed using overall LFD, healthful LFD (hLFD), and unhealthful LFD (uLFD). TL was measured using quantitative PCR. Linear regression was employed to evaluate the association between LFDs and log-transformed TL, and ordinal logistic regression was performed to assess the association of LFDs with ordinal quintiles of TL in descending order. In both fully adjusted linear and ordinal regression models, higher overall LFD [Tertile 3 vs. Tertile 1: percentage change = 2.48%, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.60%, 4.40%,