Research

Hormonal

Higher starch intake is associated with lower levels of specific plasma proteins (adrenomedullin, IL1ra, FABP4, leptin, CCL20) that are themselves positively associated with increased CVD and mortality risk.

This finding suggests that moderate starch intake may help regulate inflammatory and adiposity-related proteins. However, since the association weakened after adjusting for BMI, maintaining a healthy weight is likely the primary driver of these benefits.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
concentrations of the following five among the 88 plasma proteins were found to be significantly and inversely associated with starch intake: adrenomedullin, interleukin-1 receptor antagonist protein (IL1ra), fatty acid-binding protein (FABP4), leptin, and C-C motif chemokine 20 (CCL20)
Huiping Li et al. · BMC Medicine · 2023

Why this rating

Observational association of proteins; causality is not established, and associations attenuated after BMI adjustment.

Source

Starch intake, amylase gene copy number variation, plasma proteins, and risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality

Huiping Li et al. · BMC Medicine · 2023

DOI 10.1186/s12916-022-02706-5

cohort · n=21268Cited 6×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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