Macronutrient quality and the incidence of metabolically unhealthy phenotypes in adults with normal weight and overweight/obesity

Abstract

Objective: We aimed to investigate the associations of macronutrient quality indices with the incident metabolically unhealthy normal weight (MUNW) and metabolically unhealthy overweight/obesity (MUO) phenotypes.

Methods: This prospective study included 512 metabolically healthy normal weight and 787 metabolically healthy overweight/obese adults from the third study examination of the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study. The participants were followed through the sixth study examination. Diet was measured with a food frequency questionnaire. The macronutrient quality index (MQI), carbohydrate quality index (CQI), fat quality index (FQI), and healthy plate quality index (HPPQI) were calculated. Hazard ratio (HR) and 95 % confidence interval (95 % CI) were estimated for incident unhealthy phenotypes using Cox regression.

Results: After controlling all possible confounding factors, a one-point higher HPPQI was linked to a 28 % lower risk of MUNW (HR = 0.72; 95 % CI = 0.59, 0.87). Compared to the lowest quartile, the incident MUNW was also lower in the two last quartiles of the HPPQI. A one-unit increase in MQI was associated with a 5 % lower incident MUO (HR = 0.95; 95 % CI = 0.92, 0.99). The incident MUO was also higher for the highest compared to the lowest MQI quartile. In quartiles 2-4 of the HPPQI, incident MUO was lower with respective HRs (95 % CI) of 0.71 (0.54, 0.93), 0.60 (0.45, 0.80), and 0.66 (0.50, 0.86) in the fully-adjusted model.

Conclusions: A higher overall macronutrient quality was independently associated with a lower incident MUO. A higher dietary protein quality was related to a lower risk for MUNW and MUO.

Keywords: Carbohydrate quality index; Fat quality index; Healthy plate quality index; Metabolically unhealthy normal weight; Metabolically unhealthy overweight/obesity.