Heterogeneity of Associations between Total and Types of Fish Intake and the Incidence of Type 2 Diabetes: Federated Meta-Analysis of 28 Prospective Studies Including 956,122 Participants

Publication: Nutrients

Silvia Pastorino, Tom Bishop, Stephen J. Sharp, Matthew Pearce, Tasnime Akbaraly, Natalia B. Barbieri, Maira Bes-Rastrollo, Joline W. J. Beulens, Zhengming Chen, Huaidong Du, Bruce B. Duncan, Atsushi Goto, Tommi Härkänen,
Maryam Hashemian, Daan Kromhout, Ritva Järvinen, Mika Kivimaki, Paul Knekt, Xu Lin, Eiliv Lund, Dianna J. Magliano, Reza Malekzadeh, Miguel Ángel Martínez-González, Gráinne O’Donoghue, Donal O’Gorman, Hossein Poustchi, Charlotta Rylander, Norie Sawada, Jonathan E. Shaw, Maria Schmidt, Sabita S. Soedamah-Muthu,
Liang Sun, Wanqing Wen, Alicja Wolk, Xiao-Ou Shu, Wei Zheng, Nicholas J. Wareham, and Nita G. Forouhi

7 April 2020


Summary

Eating fish is generally considered part of a healthy diet. This is based on previous evidence from research that found benefits of consuming fish for heart disease. That is why there are various dietary guidelines that recommend that people should consume fish regularly.

Whether fish consumption also has a role in the prevention of type 2 diabetes is not clear. In previous research it was reported that the relationship between eating fish and developing type 2 diabetes may vary in different parts of the world.

To understand this better, we undertook research including data from studies in several world regions.  The InterConnect project enabled us to analyse data from nearly one million people from 28 studies across the world, among whom 48,000 people developed type 2 diabetes over time. Researchers analysed data on different types of fish, including shellfish, fatty fish, lean fish and fried fish.

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