Race-ethnicity is a strong correlate of circulating fat-soluble nutrient concentrations in a representative sample of the U.S. population

Abstract

Sociodemographic and lifestyle factors exert important influences on nutritional status; however, information on their association withbiomarkers of fat-solublenutrients is limited,particularly in a representative sampleof adults.Serumorplasmaconcentrations of vitamin A, vitamin E, carotenes, xanthophylls, 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D], SFAs, MUFAs, PUFAs, and total fatty acids (tFAs) were measured in adults (aged≤20y) during all or part of NHANES 2003-2006. Simple andmultiple linear regressionmodelswere used to assess 5 sociodemographic variables (age, sex, race-ethnicity, education, and income) and 5 lifestyle behaviors (smoking, alcoholconsumption,BMI, physical activity, and supplement use) and their relation to biomarker concentrations.Adjustment for total serumcholesterol and lipid-altering drug use was added to the full regressionmodel.Adjustment for latitude and seasonwas added to the fullmodel for 25(OH)D. Based on simple linear regression, race-ethnicity, BMI, and supplement usewere significantly related to all fat-soluble biomarkers. Sociodemographic variables as a group explained 5-17% of biomarker variability, whereas together, sociodemographic andlifestyle variablesexplained22-23%[25(OH)D,vitaminE, xanthophylls],17%(vitaminA),15%(MUFAs),10- 11%(SFAs, carotenes, tFAs), and 6%(PUFAs) ofbiomarker variability. Although lipid adjustment explained additional variability for all biomarkers except for 25(OH)D, it appeared to be largely independent of sociodemographic and lifestyle variables. After adjusting for sociodemographic, lifestyle, and lipid-related variables, major differences in biomarkers were associated with race-ethnicity (from 244 to 57%), smoking (up to225%), supplement use (up to 21%), and BMI (up to215%). Latitude and season attenuated some race-ethnicity differences. Of the sociodemographic and lifestyle variables examined, with or without lipid adjustment, most fatsoluble nutrient biomarkers were significantly associated with race-ethnicity. © 2013 American Society for Nutrition.