Why the study?
Low omega-3 index and elevated red blood cell distribution width are risk factors for all-cause mortality related to membrane fluidity, prompting investigation into their relationship in healthy adults.
In healthy adults, a higher Omega-3 index is inversely associated with red blood cell distribution width, suggesting a potential role in maintaining RBC structural and functional integrity.
Higher O3I may link to lower RDW in healthy adults; leaves open causal effects on RBC integrity or outcomes.
Summary Low red blood cell (RBC) membrane content of EPA and DHA, i.e., the omega-3 index (O3I), and elevated RBC distribution width (RDW) are risk factors for all-cause mortality. O3I and RDW are related with membrane fluidity and deformability. Our objective was to determine if there is a relationship between O3I and RDW in healthy adults. Subjects without inflammation or anemia, and with values for O3I, RDW, high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (CRP), body mass index (BMI), age and sex were identified (n=25,485) from a clinical laboratory dataset of >45,000 individuals. RDW was inversely associated with O3I in both sexes before and after (both p<0.00001) adjusting models for sex, age, BMI and CRP. Stratification by sex revealed a sex-O3I interaction with the RDW-O3I slope (p<0.00066) being especially steep in females with O3I ≤5.6%. In healthy adults of both sexes, the data suggested that an O3I of >5.6% may help maintain normal RBC structural and functional integrity.
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McBurney et al. (2021) studied this question.
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