The role of the Mediterranean diet: Eating a healthy diet and maintaining a healthy body weight can potentially reduce the risk of developing diabetes for the American population.

A Mediterranean diet is one of the few healthy eating methods associated with significant improvement in health. It is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, fish, legumes, and olive oil and is more prevalent in European countries. It is recommended by the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans to reduce the risk of chronic disease. In addition, it is associated with a reduced risk of diabetes in Mediterranean and European countries. However, it is not clear that the Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of developing diabetes in the American population. This research assessed whether a Mediterranean-style diet is associated with diabetes risk in a large American cohort study of black and white men and women.

This study was a prospective cohort study that included patients in previous research, the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, which investigated the causes of heart disease in more than 400,000 adults in the United States. In this study, data was collected for 11,991 participants on their first visit. Participants were excluded if they were Asian or Indian due to the small sample size; were black and originally from Maryland and Minnesota due to the inability to decipher the influence of geographic region in relation to race; if they had a history or history of cardiovascular disease, diabetes or cancer; or if they were derived from responses to the Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) or had at least ten FFQ items missing.

One of the statistical methods was an FFQ questionnaire to capture the food consumption of each patient during their first and third visit. Data recorded from the survey were used in the Alternative Mediterranean Diet (aMed) scores. The scores ranged from 0 to 9 points, where 1 point was awarded if the patient self-declared his consumption of vegetables, fruits or legumes and 1 point if he declared consumption of red or processed meat. The higher the aMed score, the higher the adherence to a Mediterranean style diet. They also used Cox proportional hazards regression models to estimate risk ratios and confidence intervals for associations between aMed scores and incident diabetes. Incident diabetes was defined as: if the patient was medically diagnosed, used diabetes-related medications within the previous two weeks, had a fasting blood sugar level of 126 mg / dL or greater, or no fasting 200 mg / dL or above. Additionally, variables were used in Cox regression analyzes including energy intake, age, sex, race, education level, smoking and physical activity, and clinical mediators. diabetes. They were all stratified by race and body mass index (BMI).

During a median follow-up of 22 years, this analysis revealed 4,024 incident cases of diabetes among the 11,991 participants. In summary, aMed scores and incident diabetes were higher in blacks than in whites, but reduced the risk of diabetes in both races by up to 17%. In addition, the associations between aMed scores and incident diabetes were found to be more influential in patients with a healthy BMI at baseline, showing that obesity or overweight outweighs the benefits of a healthy Mediterranean diet, as shown by the ARIC study and other American populations. Therefore, the results of this study indicate that implementing a Mediterranean diet in the absence of weight loss may not reduce the risk of diabetes in overweight or obese populations. While adherence to a Mediterranean diet may affect reducing the risk of diabetes in people with a healthy BMI, the discussion of calorie restriction to achieve and maintain a healthy body weight should remain one of the key vital roles of the body. prevention of diabetes. Overall, eating and adhering to a Mediterranean diet reduces the risk of diabetes in a community-based American population, especially for black and normal-weight people. Future studies should be conducted to determine whether a Mediterranean diet, resulting in clinically significant weight loss, can reduce the future risk of diabetes in overweight or obese people.

Practice the beads:

• A diet high in fiber, fruits, vegetables, fish, and olive oil is associated with a lower risk of developing diabetes in the American population.
• There are stronger associations between adherence to the Mediterranean pattern and incident diabetes in blacks compared to the white population in the United States.

O’Connor, LE, Hu, EA, Steffen, LM et al. Adherence to a Mediterranean-style diet and risk of diabetes in a prospective American cohort study. Nutr. Diabetes 10, 8, (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41387-020-0113-x

Kenya Henderson, 2021 PharmD. Candidate, Florida Agricultural & Mechanical University, College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences