Background: Recently, five branched-chain and aromatic amino acids were shown to be associated with the risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D).
Aim: We set out to examine whether amino acids are also associated with the development of hypertriglyceridemia.
Materials and methods: We determined the serum amino acids concentrations of 1,125 individuals of the KORA S4 baseline study, for which follow-up data were available also at the KORA F4 7 years later. After exclusion for hypertriglyceridemia (defined as having a fasting triglyceride level above 1.70 mmol/L) and diabetes at baseline, 755 subjects remained for analyses.
Results: Increased levels of leucine, arginine, valine, proline, phenylalanine, isoleucine and lysine were significantly associated with an increased risk of hypertriglyceridemia. These associations remained significant when restricting to those individuals who did not develop T2D in the 7-year follow-up. The increase per standard deviation of amino acid level was between 26 and 40 %.
Conclusions: Seven amino acids were associated with an increased risk of developing hypertriglyceridemia after 7 years. Further studies are necessary to elucidate the complex role of these amino acids in the pathogenesis of metabolic disorders.