# Long-term intake of dietary fat and risk of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease
Canonical: https://nutritionizm.com/research/10-1136-gutjnl-2013-305304/
Last verified: 2026-10-26
Source: Gut (2013), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2013-305304
License: USDA FoodData Central values are public domain (CC0 1.0); Nutritionizm compilation and plain-language text are licensed under CC BY 4.0 (attribution: link to Canonical URL).

## TL;DR

Long-term intake of trans fats may increase ulcerative colitis risk, while long-chain omega-3s may lower it.

## What they did

Scientists studied 170,805 women over 26 years. They looked at how total fat, saturated fats, unsaturated fats, different types of fatty acids, and trans-unsaturated fatty acids affected the risk of Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC).

## What they found

No links were found between total fat, saturated fats, or most fatty acids and CD or UC. However, long-chain omega-3s showed a trend towards lowering UC risk (HR 0.72, 95% CI 0.51 to 1.01), while trans-unsaturated fats showed a trend towards increasing UC risk (HR 1.34, 95% CI 0.94 to 1.92).

## Why it matters

Studies suggest that choosing foods rich in long-chain omega-3s and limiting trans fats may help maintain digestive health.

## Limits

This is general education, not medical advice.

## Jargon explained

- **HR**: Hazard Ratio - a measure used in statistics to compare the risk of an event between groups.
- **CI**: Confidence Interval - a range of values that is likely to contain an unknown population parameter.

## Full citation

Ashwin N. Ananthakrishnan, Hamed Khalili, Gauree Gupta Konijeti, Leslie M. Higuchi, Punyanganie S. de Silva, Charles S. Fuchs, Walter Churchill Willett, James M. Richter, Andrew Tan Chan (2013). Long-term intake of dietary fat and risk of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease. *Gut*. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2013-305304