Cardiovascular risk factors in relation to dietary patterns in 50-year-old men and women: a feasibility study of a short FFQ

Sammanfattning

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to assess the feasibility of a simple new fifteen-item FFQ as a tool for screening risk of poor dietary patterns in a healthy middle-aged population and to investigate how the results of the FFQ correlated with cardiovascular risk factors and socio-economic factors. DESIGN: A randomized population-based cross-sectional study. Metabolic measurements for cardiovascular risk factors and information about lifestyle were collected. A fifteen-item FFQ was created to obtain information about dietary patterns. From the FFQ, a healthy eating index was created with three dietary groups: good, average and poor. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess relationships between dietary patterns and cardiovascular risk factors. SETTING: Sweden. SUBJECTS: Men and women aged 50 years and living in Gothenburg, Sweden. RESULTS: In total, 521 middle-aged adults (257 men, 264 women) were examined. With good dietary pattern as the reference, there was a gradient association of having obesity, hypertension and high serum TAG in those with average and poor dietary patterns. After adjustment for education and lifestyle factors, individuals with a poor dietary pattern still had significantly higher risk (OR; 95 % CI) of obesity (2.33; 1.10, 4.94), hypertension (2.73; 1.44, 5.20) and high serum TAG (2.62; 1.33, 5.14) compared with those with a good dietary pattern. CONCLUSIONS: Baseline data collected by a short FFQ can predict cardiovascular risk factors in middle-aged Swedish men and women. The FFQ could be a useful tool in health-care settings, when screening for risk of poor dietary patterns.