Atlas of plasma nuclear magnetic resonance biomarkers for health and disease in 118,461 individuals from the UK Biobank

Blood lipids and metabolites are both markers of current health and indicators of risk for future disease. Here, we describe plasma nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) biomarker data for 118,461 participants in the UK Biobank, an open resource for public health research with extensive clinical and genomic data. The biomarkers cover 249 measures of lipoprotein lipids, fatty acids, and small molecules such as amino acids, ketones, and glycolysis metabolites. We provide a systematic atlas of associations of these biomarkers to prevalence, incidence, and mortality of over 700 common diseases (biomarker-atlas.nightingale.cloud/). The results reveal a plethora of biomarker associations, including susceptibility to infectious diseases and risk for onset of various cancers, joint disorders, and mental health outcomes, indicating that abundant circulating lipids and metabolites are risk markers well beyond cardiometabolic diseases. Clustering analyses indicate similar biomarker association patterns across different types of diseases, such as liver diseases and polyneuropathies, suggesting latent systemic connectivity in the susceptibility to a diverse set of diseases. The release of NMR biomarker data at scale in the UK Biobank highlights the promise of metabolic profiling in large cohorts for public health research and translation.