Temporal Patterns of Diet and Physical Activity and of Diet Alone Have More Numerous Relationships With Health and Disease Status Indicators Compared to Temporal Patterns of Physical Activity Alone

Abstract

Background: Daily temporal patterns of energy intake (temporal dietary patterns [TDPs]) and physical activity (temporal physical activity patterns [TPAPs]) have been independently and jointly (temporal dietary and physical activity patterns [TDPAPs]) associated with health and disease status indicators.

Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the number and strength of association between clusters of daily TDPs, TPAPs, and TDPAPs and multiple health and disease status indicators.

Design: This cross-sectional study used 1 reliable weekday dietary recall and 1 random weekday of accelerometer data to partition to create clusters of participants representing the 3 temporal patterns. Four clusters were created via kernel-k means clustering algorithm of the same constrained dynamic time warping distance computed over the time series for each temporal pattern.

Participants/setting: From the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2003-2006), 1,836 US adults aged 20 through 65 years who were not pregnant and had valid diet, physical activity, sociodemographic, anthropometric, questionnaire, and health and disease status indicator data were included.

Main outcome measures: Health status indicators used as outcome measures were body mass index, waist circumference, fasting plasma glucose, hemoglobin A1c, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, total cholesterol, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure; disease status indicators included obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and metabolic syndrome.

Statistical analyses performed: Multivariate regression models determined associations between the clusters representing each pattern and health and disease status indicators, controlling for confounders and adjusting for multiple comparisons. The number of significant differences among clusters and adjusted R² and Akaike information criterion compared the strength of associations between clusters of patterns and continuous and categorical health and disease status indicators.

Results: TDPAPs showed 21 significant associations with health and disease status indicators, including body mass index, waist circumference, obesity, and type 2 diabetes; TDPs showed 19 significant associations; and TPAPs showed 8 significant associations.

Conclusions: TDPAPs and TDPs had stronger and more numerous associations with health and disease status indicators compared with TPAPs. Patterns representing the integration of daily dietary habits hold promise for early detection of obesity.

Keywords: Dietary pattern; Energy intake; Obesity; Physical activity pattern; Temporal pattern.