Association of omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids with blood pressure: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies

Abstract

Objectives

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed at summarizing earlier findings on the association of n-6 PUFAs levels in diets or blood with blood pressure.

Methods

PubMed/Medline, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched for observational studies. Publications with data on the risk of hypertension, or the correlation between n-6 PUFAs or mean values of serum n-6 PUFAs levels in normotensive and hypertensive were included.

Results

Twenty-two studies (16 cross-sectional studies, 5 cohorts and one case-control) were eligible. Combining 14 extracted effect sizes showed that higher circulatory/dietary n-6 PUFAs tended to be associated with 10% lower risk of HTN (95% CI: 0.81, 1.00), whereas combining 23 effect sizes illustrated no difference in circulatory/dietary n-6 PUFAs mean levels between normotensive and hypertensive subjects. According to subgroup analysis based on fatty acid types, total n-6 PUFAs (OR = 0.82, 95% CI: 0.70, 0.97) and linoleic acid (OR = 0.56, 95% CI: 0.39, 0.82) were inversely related to the risk of HTN. Circulatory/dietary n-6 PUFAs were correlated neither with systolic nor with diastolic blood pressure.

Conclusions

Higher circulatory/dietary n-6 PUFAs tend to be associated with lower odds of HTN. Particularly, total n-6 PUFAs and linoleic acid were associated with lower risk of HTN.

Keywords:

• Hypertension
• blood pressure
• polyunsaturated fatty acid
• n-6 PUFA
• linoleic acid
• meta-analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors’ responsibilities were as follows: FH was involved in the conception. PH and FH conducted the research and extracted data. AF and FH analyzed the data. PH and FH wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript, and they have no conflicts of interest.

Additional information

Funding

The study was funded by Isfahan University of Medical sciences.