Plasma Metabolites From Choline Pathway and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in the PREDIMED (Prevention With Mediterranean Diet) Study

Background-The relationship between plasma concentrations of betaine and choline metabolism and major cardiovascular disease (CVD) end points remains unclear. We have evaluated the association between metabolites from the choline pathway and risk of incident CVD and the potential modifying effect of Mediterranean diet interventions. Methods and Results-We designed a case-cohort study nested within the PREDIMED (Prevention With Mediterranean Diet) trial, including 229 incident CVD cases and 751 randomly selected participants at baseline, followed up for 4.8 years. We used liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry to measure, at baseline and at 1 year of follow-up, plasma concentrations of 5 metabolites in the choline pathway: trimethylamine N-oxide, betaine, choline, phosphocholine, and a-glycerophosphocholine. We have calculated a choline metabolite score using a weighted sum of these 5 metabolites. We used weighted Cox regression models to estimate CVD risk. The multivariable hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) per 1-SD increase in choline and alpha-glycerophosphocholine metabolites were 1.24 (1.05-1.46) and 1.24 (1.03-1.50), respectively. The baseline betaine/choline ratio was inversely associated with CVD. The baseline choline metabolite score was associated with a 2.21-fold higher risk of CVD across extreme quartiles (95% confidence interval, 1.36-3.59; P
This work was supported by NIH research grant HL118264. The PREDIMED trial was supported by the official funding agency for biomedical research of the Spanish Government, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, through grants provided to research networks specifically developed for the trial (RTIC G03/140 to Estruch; RTIC RD 06/0045 to Martinez-Gonzalez) and through Centro de Investigacion Biomedica en Red de Fisiopatologia de la Obesidad y Nutricion; and by grants from Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (06/2007), Fondo de Investigacion Sanitaria-Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (PI04-2239, PI05/2584, CP06/00100, PI07/0240, PI07/1138, PI07/0954, PI 07/0473, PI10/01407, PI10/02658, PI11/01647, P11/02505, and PI13/00462), Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (AGL-2009-13906-C02 and AGL2010-22319-C03), Fundacion Mapfre 2010, Consejeria de Salud de la Junta de Andalucia (PI0105/2007), Public Health Division of the Department of Health of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia, Generalitat Valenciana (ACOMP06109, GVA-COMP2010-181, GVACOMP2011-151, CS2010-AP-111, and CS2011-AP-042), and Regional Government of Navarra (P27/2011). Guasch-Ferre was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship granted by the Agency for Administration of University and Research Grants of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia (2014-BP-A 00017). None of the funding sources played a role in the design, collection, analysis, or interpretation of the data or in the decision to submit the article for publication.