Aim: The purpose of this study was to investigate the association of dietary patterns with the risk of insulin resistance (IR), diabetes mellitus (DM), and central obesity in China.
Methods: We performed a cross-sectional study on 1432 participants, aged 40-65 years in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, China. Dietary intake was assessed using a semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire.
Results: Factor analysis extracted four major dietary patterns: vegetable-fruits, rice-meat, seafood-eggs, and sweet-fast. The vegetable-fruits pattern was inversely associated with HOMA-IR (p < 0.001 in both genders), while sweet-fast food pattern was significantly associated with higher HOMA-IR (p = 0.002 in male, and p < 0.001 in female). The vegetables-fruits pattern was inversely correlated with visceral fat area (VFA) (p = 0.029 in males, and p = 0.017 in females), while sweet-fast food pattern presented a significant direct association (p < 0.001 in male) with VFA in males. There was no association observed between the rice-meat pattern or the seafood-eggs pattern and HOMA-IR or VFA. After adjustment for potential confounding factors, participants in the highest tertile of vegetable-fruits pattern showed a significantly lower risk of DM in both males and females (OR: 0.30, 95% CI: 0.13-0.70 in male, and OR: 0.28, 95% CI: 0.11-0.72 in female), and lower risk of central obesity was observed in males (OR: 0.50, 95% CI: 0.29-0.86 in male). Conversely, participants in the highest tertile of sweet-fast food pattern had higher risk of DM (OR: 2.58, 95% CI: 1.23-5.88 in male), and central obesity (OR: 2.85, 95% CI: 1.67-4.86 in male) only in male. While neither the rice-meat pattern nor the seafood-eggs pattern showed significant association with DM or central obesity in both genders.
Conclusions: Our findings indicated low risk of IR, DM, and central obesity with vegetable-fruits pattern while inverse relation with sweet-fast food pattern.