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

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Cardiovascular risk factors; Dietary patterns; FFQ; Screening.

Fig. 1

Flowchart of the study participants

Fig. 2

Percentage of participants in each dietary pattern group (, poor; , average; , good) who were considered to meet the recommendations for each item among 50-year-old men and women born in 1963 and living in Gothenburg, Sweden, 2013. Differences between groups were measured with χ ² tests: *P<0·05 (pairwise difference between the groups are presented in the online supplementary material, Supplemental Table 1). Good diet meets nine or more recommendations; average diet meets six to eight recommendations; and poor diet meets five or fewer recommendations

Fig. 3

Distribution of socio-economic and lifestyle factors by dietary pattern group (, poor; , average; , good) among 50-year-old men and women born in 1963 and living in Gothenburg, Sweden, 2013. Differences between groups were measured with χ ² tests (pairwise difference between the groups are presented in the online supplementary material, Supplemental Table 2). Good diet meets nine or more recommendations; average diet meets six to eight recommendations; and poor diet meets five or fewer recommendations

Fig. 4

Odds of having a cardiovascular risk factor, comparing participants with a good dietary pattern (Ref., reference category) v. participants with average and poor dietary patterns, among 50-year-old men and women born in 1963 and living in Gothenburg, Sweden, 2013. Values are OR, with their 95 % CI represented by horizontal bars: , model 1 (unadjusted); , model 2 (adjusted for education, smoking, sedentary lifestyle and permanent stress). Good diet meets nine or more recommendations; average diet meets six to eight recommendations; and poor diet meets five or fewer recommendations