Dietary linolenic acid and adjusted QT and JT intervals in the national heart, lung, and blood institute family heart study

OBJECTIVES: The goal of this study was to examine whether higher consumption of total linolenic acid was associated with rate-adjusted QT and JT intervals (QTrr and JTrr, respectively). BACKGROUND: Higher intake of fish omega-3 fatty acids and plant omega-3 such as alpha-linolenic acid is associated with lower risk of myocardial infarction. While long-chain omega-3 can inhibit ventricular arrhythmia, it is not known whether alpha-linolenic acid influences ventricular repolarization. METHODS: We studied 3,642 subjects from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Family Heart study who were free of myocardial infarction, left ventricular hypertrophy, pacemaker, and with QRS <120 ms. We used the 95th percentile of the gender-specific distribution of QTrr and JTrr to define abnormally prolonged repolarization. Within each gender, we created age- and energy-adjusted tertiles of linolenic acid and used regression models for analyses. RESULTS: Mean age was 50 years, and average intake of total linolenic acid was 0.74 g/day. There was an inverse association between consumption of linolenic acid and QTrr and JTrr (p for trend 0.001 and 0.0005, respectively). From the lowest (reference) to the highest gender-, age-, and energy-adjusted tertile of linolenic acid, multivariable adjusted odds ratios for prolonged QTrr were 1.0, 0.74 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.57 to 0.96), and 0.59 (95% CI 0.44 to 0.77), respectively (p for trend 0.0003). Corresponding values for JTrr were 1.0, 0.73 (95% CI 0.52 to 1.03), and 0.59 (95% CI 0.40 to 0.87), respectively (p for trend 0.009). Exclusion of subjects taking drugs known to influence QT did not influence this association. CONCLUSIONS: Higher intake of dietary linolenic acid might be associated with a reduced risk of abnormally prolonged repolarization in men and women.