Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of fatty acid desaturase (FADS) and n-3/n-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) have been linked to decreased risks of cardiovascular diseases. We aimed to examine whether FADS SNPs (rs2072114, rs1535, and rs174546 ) interacted with n-3/n-6 PUFAs status as plasma levels to affect blood lipid profiles in type 2 diabetes. In 2008, we selected 192 diabetic patients without using lipid-lowering drugs from a diabetic (DMIDS) cohort established in Taiwan. After adjusting for confounding factors, FADS2 rs2072114 G-variant correlated significantly with decreased total cholesterol (p-trend=0.015), LDL (p-trend=0.009), and HDL (p-trend=0.007) only in the low (<50 percentile) alpha-linolenic acid (ALA)/linoleic acids (LA) group but not in the high (?50 percentile) ALA/LA group (p for interaction= 0.012, 0.012, and 0.181, respectively). Furthermore, the G-variant was significantly associated with lower total cholesterol (p-trend=0.049) and HDL (p-trend=0.024), and marginally with LDL (p-trend=0.067) in the low n-3 long chain PUFA (LCPUFAs) group (<50 percentile) but not in the high n-3 LCPUFAs (?50 percentile) (p for interaction= 0.170, 0.053, and 0.015, respectively). Genetic variations of FADS2 may interact with n-3/n-6 PUFAs to affect cholesterol metabolisms in type 2 diabetes. Further investigation may be needed with larger sample size in this ethnic population.
