The health impacts and genetic architecture of food liking in cardio-metabolic diseases
Nature Communications, 2025
Jiang W., Wang H., Geng Y., Guo M., Zuo Y., Han S., Liu Z., Chen S., Fan S., Li S., Qiao C., Li Q., Li B., Zhang Y., Wei W., Han T.
| Disease area | Application area | Sample type | Products |
|---|---|---|---|
CVD Nutritional Science | Pathophysiology | Plasma |  Olink Explore 3072/384 |
Abstract
We evaluated temporal and genetic relationships between 176 food-liking-traits and cardio-metabolic diseases using data from the UK Biobank (N = 182,087) for observational analyses and summary-level GWAS data from FinnGen and other consortia (N = 406,565–977,323) for genetic analyses. Integrating observational and genetic results, we identified two detrimental food-liking-traits (bacon and diet-fizzy-drinks) and three protective food-liking-traits (broccoli, pizza, and lentils/beans). These food-liking-traits are associated with habitual food intake and influence cardio-metabolic proteins and biological processes. Notably, we found three genetic links: diet-fizzy-drinks with heart-failure, bacon with type-2-diabetes, and lentils/beans with type-2-diabetes, identifying 54 pleiotropic single-nucleotide-variants, impacting both phenotypes. Our data show the diet-fizzy-drinks and heart-failure link maybe not direct, as diet-fizzy-drinks liking correlates with sweet food consumption and shares variants linked to BMI, adiposity, platelet count and cardio-metabolic traits. The pleiotropic single-nucleotide-variants map to 251 tissue-specific genes, with four showing high druggability potential, highlighting personalized dietary strategies for cardio-metabolic diseases.