Association of maternal dietary habits and ADIPOQ gene polymorphisms with the risk of congenital heart defects in offspring: a hospital-based case-control study

Objectives To estimate the association of maternal ADIPOQ gene, dietary habits in early pregnancy, and their interactions with the risk of congenital heart defects (CHDs) in offspring. Methods A case-control study of 464 mothers of CHDs children and 504 mothers of healthy children was included. Maternal dietary habits and genetic polymorphisms of ADIPOQ were the main exposure of interest. Their independent effects and interactions in the development of CHDs were analyzed in our study. Results The excessive consumption of pickled vegetables (aOR = 1.58, 95%CI: 1.17–2.12), smoked foods (aOR = 1.84, 95%CI:1.34–2.52), barbecued foods (aOR = 1.62, 95%CI: 1.09–2.39), fish and shrimp (aOR = 0.37, 95%CI: 0.27–50), and milk products (aOR = 0.64, 95%CI: 0.51–80) had a significant association with total CHDs risk. The polymorphisms of ADIPOQ gene at rs1501299 (T/T vs G/G: aOR = 0.27, 95%CI: 0.14–50; G/T vs G/G: aOR = 0.67, 95%CI: 0.46–98) and rs2241766 (G/G vs T/T: aOR = 4.35, 95%CI: 2.23–8.51; T/G vs T/T: aOR = 2.23, 95%CI: 1.51–3.28) showed a significant association with total CHDs risk. Likewise, our results found that maternal dietary habits and ADIPOQ genetic variants also were significantly related to the risk of specific CHDs phenotypes. In addition, gene-diet interaction revealed significant associations between the ADIPOQ gene and maternal dietary habits with total CHDs. Conclusions Maternal dietary habits, ADIPOQ gene, and their interactions show a significant association with the risk of CHDs. However, our study has some limitations, thus our findings need to be taken with caution, which highlights that more studies are required to further corroborate our findings.