Dietary Phosphatidylcholine Intake and Type 2 Diabetes in Men and Women

Recent studies have related plasma levels of gut microbiota metabolites of dietary phosphatidylcholine to risk of cardiovascular disease (1,2). Choline from dietary phosphatidylcholine can be converted by gut microbes to form trimethylamine, which is then absorbed and oxidized in the liver to form trimethyamine oxidase (3). Diet is the primary source of gut microbiota metabolites; however, little is known about the association between dietary phosphatidylcholine and risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D). We extracted data with dietary intake from three ongoing cohorts: the Nurses' Health Study (NHS), NHS II, and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS). We excluded participants with diabetes ( n = 5,466), cardiovascular disease ( n = 3,655), cancer ( n = 8,675), or implausible dietary data ( n = 4,009) at baseline, leaving 203,308 men and women for analysis (NHS: 73,128; NHS II: 88,516; HPFS: 41,664). Dietary phosphatidylcholine was estimated by a valid food-frequency questionnaire (4), with approximately 130 food items administered every 2 or 4 years combined with the phosphatidylcholine contents from the U.S. Department of Agriculture database (http://www.ars.usda.gov/ba/bhnrc/ndl) and from values published by …