Research

Hormonal

Circulating very-long-chain saturated fatty acids (VLCSFAs) in erythrocytes are NOT significantly associated with a reduced risk of incident coronary heart disease (CHD) after multivariate adjustment.

Unlike plasma levels, erythrocyte levels of these specific fatty acids do not show a clear protective effect against heart disease in this study. This highlights that the location of the fatty acid (plasma vs. cell membrane) matters for its health impact.

GoodRefutesMEDIUM confidence
For VLCSFAs in erythrocytes, a nonsignificant inverse trend with CHD risk was observed (pooled hazard ratio, 0.66; 95% confidence interval, 0.41–1.06, comparing extreme quintiles; Ptrend=0.16).
Vasanti Malik et al. · Circulation · 2015

Why this rating

Same rigorous cohort design as the primary finding, but the result was non-significant.

Source

Circulating Very-Long-Chain Saturated Fatty Acids and Incident Coronary Heart Disease in US Men and Women

Vasanti Malik et al. · Circulation · 2015

DOI 10.1161/circulationaha.114.014911

cohort · n=2027Cited 92×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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