Branched-chain amino acids predict incident diabetes in the Brazilian Longitudinal Study of Adult Health - ELSA-Brasil.

<bold>Aims: </bold>To evaluate the role of branch chain amino acid (BCAA) concentrations as a predictor for incident type 2 diabetes (DM).<bold>Methods: </bold>Participants from ELSA-Brasil without diabetes at baseline and followed for 3.9 ± 0.6 years were included in the analysis. The determinations of BCAA (valine, leucine, isoleucine) were performed by proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Cardiometabolic profile and incidence of DM were evaluated according to quartiles of BCAA at baseline, stratified by sex.<bold>Results: </bold>From 3,828 participants (56% female, 50.5 ± 8.7 years) 299 (8.5%) were diagnosed with DM. For both sexes, a worsening of cardiometabolic profile was observed across increasing BCAA quartiles. In survival analysis, incidence rates of DM for the entire period were highest in participants in the third and fourth quartile of BCAA (log Rank analysis < 0.001 for both sexes). In Cox regression analysis, for men, the HR (95%CI) for risk of DM was 2.24 (1.24-4.03) for those from the fourth quartile of BCAA, while in women it was 1.94 (1.07-3.50), comparing to first quartile of BCAA after adjustments for age, BMI, physical activity, family history of DM, pre-diabetes, blood pressure, total cholesterol and HOMA-IR.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Higher levels of BCAA were independently predictors of DM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]