Association between Dietary Fatty Acid Patterns and Colorectal Cancer Risk: A Large-Scale Case-Control Study in China

Associations of dietary fatty acids with the risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) remain controversial. The objective of this study was to examine whether dietary-derived fatty acid patterns were related to CRC risk among Chinese people. A total of 2806 CRC patients and 2806 frequency-matched controls were interviewed in this case-control study between July 2010 and May 2021. A food frequency questionnaire was used to gather information on dietary intake. Four fatty acid patterns were identified using factor analysis. The even-long-chain fatty acid pattern had no statistically significant association with CRC risk (adjusted Odds ratio (aOR), 1.16; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.97-1.39; p_trend = 0.129). However, significant inverse associations were found between the medium-chain and long-chain saturated fatty acid (SFA) pattern (aOR, 0.34; 95%CI, 0.27-0.42), the highly unsaturated fatty acid pattern (aOR, 0.73; 95%CI, 0.60-0.88), the odd-chain fatty acid pattern (aOR, 0.69; 95%CI, 0.57-0.83), and CRC risk. The interaction between fatty acid patterns and sex was observed, and the association between the highly unsaturated fatty acid pattern and CRC risk differed by subsite. In conclusion, increasing the intakes of foods rich in medium-chain SFAs, highly unsaturated fatty acids, and odd-chain fatty acids may be related to a lower risk of CRC.