Fish consumption and the risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes: a dose-response meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies

We aimed to investigate the association of fish consumption with the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke and all-cause mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). We systematically searched PubMed and Scopus from inception till June 2019. We included prospective cohort studies assessing the relation of fish intake with the risk of CHD, stroke and mortality in patients with T2D. Study-specific results were pooled with the use of a random-effects model. Nine prospective cohort studies with 57,394 diabetic patients were identified. The relative risks for the highest compared with the lowest category of fish consumption were 0.86 (95% CI 0.76, 0.96; I² = 50%, n = 8) for all-cause mortality, and 0.61 (95% CI 0.29, 0.93; I² = 68%, n = 3) for CHD. There was a monotonic inverse association, with a nadir at fish consumption of approximately 2–3 servings/week, in both analyses. A nonsignificant inverse association was found for stroke. In the analysis of all-cause mortality, a nonsignificant inverse association was found in studies that controlled for energy intake, suggesting that the observed inverse association was not an addition effect, but may be due to substituting other foods such as red and processed meat with fish.