Major dietary patterns and the risk of general and central obesity among type 2 diabetic patients

Few studies have investigated the association between dietary patterns, general and central obesity in type 2 diabetic patients. The aim of this study is to determine this relation among type 2 diabetic patients living in Tehran. In this cross-sectional study, 728 patients with type 2 diabetes from the Tehran diabetes centers were participated. Usual dietary intake was assessed by using a validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) during the last year. General obesity was defined as a BMI ≤ 30 kg/m2 and central obesity was defined as waist circumference (WC) ≤ 88 in women and WC≤ 102 in men. Factor analysis was used to identify major dietary patterns. The association between dietary patterns and different types of obesity were assessed by logistic regression analysis. Two maijor dietary patterns were identified: Healthy and Unhealthy dietary pattern. After adjustment for confounding variables, we observed a relative risk of 3.2 (OR=3.2, 95% CI=1.7-5.8) and 1.8 (OR=1.8, 95% CI=1.05-3) for general and central obesity when comparing the highest to lowest quintiles of the unhealthy dietary pattern, while subjects in the highest quintile of the healthy dietary pattern scores, had a 56% decreased risk of general obesity compared to those in the lowest (OR=0.44, 95% CI= 0.25-0.76). The result of this study indicate that healthy dietary pattern was inversly associated with a risk of general obesity and unhealthy dietary pattern was positively associated with general and central obesity risk.