Empirically identified dietary patterns and metabolic syndrome risk in a prospective cohort study: The Cardiovascular Disease Association Study

Background & aims: Dietary pattern is a comprehensive assessment of diet that may reflect the interrelationships between foods. Analysis on actual dietary pattern and metabolic syndrome (MetS) risk are insufficient. This study examined the prospective association between empirically identified dietary patterns and MetS risk in adults aged 40 years or older.Methods: A total of 11,305 participants (58,318 person-years) without MetS were followed. Predefined 37 food/food groups from the 106-item food frequency questionnaire were used in factor analysis to identify dietary patterns. Subsequently, we conducted a hierarchical clustering analysis of group participants based on their dietary pattern scores. Incidence rate ratios and 95% confidence intervals were estimated using a modified Poisson regression model with a robust error estimator.Results: We identified three similar, but not identical, dietary patterns in men and women separately. The vegetables/seaweeds and meat/poultry/seafood patterns and MetS risk were associated differently between men and women; in men, the association with MetS risk was inverse for vegetables/ seaweeds but U-shaped in the meat/poultry/seafood pattern, whereas it was positive and inverse in women, respectively. The non-traditional/non-staple foods pattern was inversely associated in both men and women. Three and four clusters of the three dietary patterns were observed in men and women, respectively. A cluster in women with a high vegetables/seaweeds score (cluster 2) showed higher incidence rate ratios of MetS compared with all other clusters.Conclusions: In the present study, the non-traditional/non-staple foods dietary pattern is possibly beneficial in the development of MetS in both men and women, while the vegetables/seaweeds pattern, if their sodium amount is not controlled, may be harmful in the development of MetS among women.(c) 2022 Elsevier Ltd and European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study examined the association between dietary patterns and metabolic syndrome (MetS) risk in adults. Three dietary patterns were identified in both men and women, and their associations with MetS risk differed between genders. The non-traditional/non-staple foods pattern was inversely associated with MetS risk in both men and women, while the vegetables/seaweeds pattern had varying associations depending on gender. The findings suggest that dietary patterns play a role in the development of MetS in both men and women.