Tier 4 — mechanistic

Usual choline and betaine dietary intake and incident coronary heart disease: the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study

Aurelian Bidulescu, Lloyd E Chambless, Anna Maria Siega-Riz, Steven H Zeisel, Gerardo Heiss
BMC cardiovascular disorders 2007 7:20

Bibliography

PubMed
PMID 17629908
PubMed Central
PMC1934379
DOI
10.1186/1471-2261-7-20
Funding
Indexed grant support: N01 HC055016 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; N01 HC055019 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; DK55865 — NIDDK NIH HHS — United States; N01-HC-55016 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; N01 HC055015 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; N01-HC-55021 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; N01-HC-55019 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; N01-HC-55015 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; N01-HC-55020 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; N01 HC055018 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; T32 DK007686 — NIDDK NIH HHS — United States; P30 DK056350 — NIDDK NIH HHS — United States; N01 HC055022 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; N01-HC-55018 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; N01-HC-55022 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; R01 DK055865 — NIDDK NIH HHS — United States; N01 HC055021 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; N01 HC055020 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; DK56350 — NIDDK NIH HHS — United States; DK07686 — NIDDK NIH HHS — United States; T32 HL007055 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States; HL07055 — NHLBI NIH HHS — United States. The indexed list may not contain the complete funding declaration.
Competing interests
Reported disclosure: Competing interestsThe author(s) declare that they have no competing interests.

Study snapshot

DesignProspective cohort
ModelHuman participants
Sample14430 ARIC participants; 1072 coronary events
InterventionHabitual dietary choline and/or betaine intake; no randomized TMG treatment
DurationAverage 14 years
EndpointsCoronary events

What the study showed, in plain terms

Published in 2007, this source examined human observational and biomarker research. Design: Prospective cohort. Sample/model: 14430 ARIC participants; 1072 coronary events. The exposure or intervention was Habitual dietary choline and/or betaine intake; no randomized TMG treatment. Follow-up or treatment period: Average 14 years.

Higher choline-plus-betaine intake was not significantly protective against incident coronary heart disease.

Observational exposure analysis: residual confounding and reverse causation remain possible. Associations do not establish that betaine supplementation causes the same outcome.

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Key findings

  • Higher choline-plus-betaine intake was not significantly protective against incident coronary heart disease.
  • The recorded outcome domains were Coronary events.
  • The exposure was observed rather than assigned as an isolated supplement treatment.

What this study can and cannot tell us

  • Observational exposure analysis: residual confounding and reverse causation remain possible. Associations do not establish that betaine supplementation causes the same outcome.
  • Confounding, dietary patterns, illness, medication use and reverse causation can influence an association. Blood or dietary concentrations do not identify the effect of starting a capsule.
  • Source basis: Accessible full-text extract plus indexed bibliographic data. Missing method details, funding information or participant denominators are not inferred.

Related papers in the corpus

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Dietary Choline and Betaine and Risk of CVD: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Studies
Katie A Meyer et al. · Nutrients · 2017
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Dietary Choline and Betaine Are Not Associated With the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes. A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies
Elham Sharifi-Zahabi et al. · Journal of diabetes research · 2026
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Association of choline and betaine with the risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality: Meta-analysis
Qinglin Yang et al. · European journal of clinical investigation · 2023
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Association of choline and betaine levels with cancer incidence and survival: A meta-analysis
Jiyoung Youn et al. · Clinical nutrition (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2019

Editorial review

Reviewed by the Biohack Blueprint research team

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Dr. Khaled Mahmoud, MBBChCritical Care Medicine, Longevity Science & Editorial Direction Dr. Amr Yasser, PhDCardiometabolic, Musculoskeletal, Gut & Bioavailability Dr. Abdulla Mostafa, PhDCellular Senescence, Neurological, Mitochondrial & Brain-Ageing Biology