SynthesisNutrients2020
N-6 Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Risk of Cancer: Accumulating Evidence from Prospective Studies.
Synthesis in Nutrients, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 4 of them syntheses 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
22 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 40 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
- Risk factors for breast cancer: an umbrella review of observational cohort studies and causal relationship analysis.Frontiers in oncology · 2025Pooled it
- Dietary Factors and Pancreatic Cancer Risk: An Umbrella Review of Meta-Analyses of Prospective Observational Studies.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2023Pooled it
- Comprehensive Investigation on Associations between Dietary Intake and Blood Levels of Fatty Acids and Colorectal Cancer Risk.Nutrients · 2023Pooled it
- LifelongNutrients · 2026Article
- Milk Yield and Quality, Metabolic Profile and Oxidative Status in Lactating Goats, as Affected by Silage Based on Agro-Industrial By-Products.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids and Skin Cancer: Two-Sample Mendelian Randomization Study.Annals of dermatology · 2025Article
- Historical rise of cancer and dietary linoleic acid: Mechanisms and therapeutic strategies.World journal of clinical oncology · 2025Review
- Red Blood Cell Omega-6 Fatty Acids and Biomarkers of Inflammation in the Framingham Offspring Study.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Associations of plasma omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids with overall and 19 site-specific cancers: A population-based cohort study in UK Biobank.International journal of cancer · 2025Article
- Commentary: The energy model of insulin resistance: a unifying theory linking seed oils to metabolic disease and cancer.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Shrimp Lipids Inhibit Migration, Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition, and Cancer Stem Cells via Akt/mTOR/c-Myc Pathway Suppression.Biomedicines · 2024Article
- Associations of plasma omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids with overall and 19 site-specific cancers: a population-based cohort study in UK Biobank.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- Is there any association between type of dietary fat and quality of life in hemodialysis patients? A cross-sectional study.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
- Relationships of omega-3 and omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids with esophageal diseases: a two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Article
- Fat and fatty acids - a scoping review for Nordic Nutrition Recommendations 2023.Food & nutrition research · 2024Article
- The association between genetically elevated polyunsaturated fatty acids and risk of cancer.EBioMedicine · 2023Article
- Review
- Mechanisms of Arachidonic Acid In Vitro Tumoricidal Impact.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Recent insights into dietary ω-6 fatty acid health implications using a systematic review.Food science and biotechnology · 2022Review
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
Abstract
Previous studies on the association between polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and cancer have focused on n-3 PUFAs. To investigate the association between intake or blood levels of n-6 PUFAs and cancer, we searched the PubMed and Embase databases up to March 2020 and conducted a meta-analysis. A total of 70 articles were identified. High blood levels of n-6 PUFAs were associated with an 8% lower risk of all cancers (relative risk (RR) = 0.92; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.86-0.98) compared to low blood levels of n-6 PUFAs. In the subgroup analyses by cancer site, type of n-6 PUFAs, and sex, the inverse associations were strong for breast cancer (RR = 0.87; 95% CI: 0.77-0.98), linoleic acid (LA) (RR = 0.91; 95% CI: 0.82-1.00), and women (RR = 0.88; 95% CI: 0.79-0.97). In the dose-response analysis, a 2% and 3% decrease in the risk of cancer was observed with a 5% increase in blood levels of n-6 PUFAs and LA, respectively. Thus, there was no significant association between n-6 PUFA intake and the risk of cancer. The pooled RR of cancer for the highest versus lowest category of n-6 PUFA intake was 1.02 (95% CI: 0.99-1.05). Evidence from prospective studies indicated that intake of n-6 PUFAs was not significantly associated with risk of cancer, but blood levels of n-6 PUFAs were inversely associated with risk of cancer.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.