ReviewBMC medicine2012
New insights into the health effects of dietary saturated and omega-6 and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.
Review in BMC medicine, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 76 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
76 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 188 citations in OpenAlex.
- Dietary and circulating omega-6 fatty acids and their impact on cardiovascular disease, cancer risk, and mortality: a global meta-analysis of 150 cohorts and meta-regression.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Trial
- Trial
- Bta-miR-30f promotes adipogenesis and unsaturated fatty acid accumulation by targetingiScience · 2026Article
- Nutritional Value and Health Implications of Meat from Monogastric Animals Exposed to Heat Stress.Nutrients · 2025Review
- Enhancing Food Security via selecting Superior Camelina (Camelina sativa L.) parents: a positive approach incorporating pheno-morphological traits, fatty acids composition, and Tocopherols Content.BMC plant biology · 2025Article
- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: The Role of Healthy and Unhealthy Dietary Patterns-A Comprehensive Review.Food science & nutrition · 2024Review
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- Underutilized plants increase biodiversity, improve food and nutrition security, reduce malnutrition, and enhance human health and well-being. Let's put them back on the plate!Nutrition reviews · 2024Review
- Association between gut microbiota at 3.5 years of age and body mass index at 5 years: results from two French nationwide birth cohorts.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2024Article
- Polyunsaturated fatty acids-induced ferroptosis suppresses pancreatic cancer growth.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- New Insights into Prospective Health Potential of ω-3 PUFAs.Current nutrition reports · 2023Review
- Dietary Fatty Acids and Inflammation: Focus on the n-6 Series.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Review
- Effects of omega-3 fatty acid supplementation on nutritional status and inflammatory response in patients with stage II-III NSCLC undergoing postoperative chemotherapy: a double-blind randomized controlled trial.Frontiers in nutrition · 2023Article
- The effects of FTO gene rs9939609 polymorphism on the association between breast cancer and dietary intake.Journal of cellular and molecular medicine · 2022Article
- Article
- The Controlled Semi-Solid Fermentation of Seaweeds as a Strategy for Their Stabilization and New Food Applications.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Critical Review on Fatty Acid-Based Food and Nutraceuticals as Supporting Therapy in Cancer.International journal of molecular sciences · 2022Review
- Oocyte metabolic function, lipid composition, and developmental potential are altered by diet in older mares.Reproduction (Cambridge, England) · 2022Article
- Article
16 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases and cancers are leading causes of morbidity and mortality. Reducing dietary saturated fat and replacing it with polyunsaturated fat is still the main dietary strategy to prevent cardiovascular diseases, although major flaws have been reported in the analyses supporting this approach. Recent studies introducing the concept of myocardial preconditioning have opened new avenues to understand the complex interplay between the various lipids and the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The optimal dietary fat profile includes a low intake of both saturated and omega-6 fatty acids and a moderate intake of omega-3 fatty acids. This profile is quite similar to the Mediterranean diet. On the other hand, recent studies have found a positive association between omega-6 and breast cancer risk. In contrast, omega-3 fatty acids do have anticancer properties. It has been shown that certain (Mediterranean) polyphenols significantly increase the endogenous synthesis of omega-3 whereas high intake of omega-6 decreases it. Finally, epidemiological studies suggest that a high omega-3 to omega-6 ratio may be the optimal strategy to decrease breast cancer risk. Thus, the present high intake of omega-6 in many countries is definitely not the optimal strategy to prevent cardiovascular disease and cancers. A moderate intake of plant and marine omega-3 in the context of the traditional Mediterranean diet (low in saturated and omega-6 fatty acids but high in plant monounsaturated fat) appears to be the best approach to reduce the risk of both cardiovascular diseases and cancers, in particular breast cancer.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.