Iron Intake and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women
A prospective cohort study
- Swapnil Rajpathak, MD, DRPH12,
- Jing Ma, MD, PHD3,
- JoAnn Manson, MD, DRPH234,
- Walter C. Willett, MD, DRPH123 and
- Frank B. Hu, MD, PHD123
- 1Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
- 2Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts
- 3Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
- 4Department of Preventive Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts
- Address correspondence and reprint requests to Swapnil Rajpathak, Departments of Epidemiology and Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY 11375. E-mail: srajpath{at}post.harvard.edu
Abstract
OBJECTIVE—Epidemiological studies suggest that high body iron stores are associated with insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between dietary intake of iron and the risk of type 2 diabetes.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—We conducted a prospective cohort study within the Nurses’ Health Study. We followed 85,031 healthy women aged 34–59 years from 1980 to 2000. Dietary data were collected every 4 years, and data on medical history and lifestyle factors were updated biennially.
RESULTS—During the 20 years of follow-up, we documented 4,599 incident cases of type 2 diabetes. We found no association between total, dietary, supplemental, or nonheme iron and the risk of type 2 diabetes. However, heme iron intake (derived from animal products) was positively associated with risk; relative risks (RRs) across increasing quintiles of cumulative intake were 1.00, 1.08 (95% CI 0.97–1.19), 1.20 (1.09–1.33), 1.27 (1.14–1.41), and 1.28 (1.14–1.45) (Ptrend < 0.0001) after controlling for age, BMI, and other nondietary and dietary risk factors. In addition, when we modeled heme iron in seven categories, the multivariate RR comparing women who consumed ≥2.25 mg/day and those with intake <0.75 mg/day was 1.52 (1.22–1.88). The association between heme iron and the risk of diabetes was significant in both overweight and lean women.
CONCLUSIONS—This large cohort study suggests that higher heme iron intake is associated with a significantly increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
Footnotes
-
A table elsewhere in this issue shows conventional and Système International (SI) units and conversion factors for many substances.
The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked “advertisement” in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
-
- Accepted February 21, 2006.
- Received January 17, 2006.
- DIABETES CARE
