Moderate carb intake tied to low cardiovascular disease risk in middle-aged women

Middle-aged women with moderate consumption of carbohydrates have the lowest risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), a study suggests. Meanwhile, increasing saturated fat intake is linked to a lower likelihood of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.

The study included 9,899 women (mean age 52.5 years) recruited into the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health. The women were grouped into quintiles according to their carbohydrate and saturated fat intake as a percentage of total energy intake (TEI).

Researchers applied multivariate logistic regression models to evaluate associations of carbohydrate and saturated fat intake with all-cause mortality, incident hypertension, obesity, and/or diabetes mellitus.

Over a follow-up of 15 years, a total of 1,199 incident CVD and 470 deaths were documented. Multivariable analysis revealed that higher carbohydrate intake was associated with lower CVD risk (p_trend<0.01), with the lowest CVD risk seen in quintile 3 (41.0–44.3 percent energy as carbohydrate) versus quintile 1 (<37.1 percent energy as carbohydrate; odds ratio [OR], 0.56, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.35–0.91; p=0.02).

There were no significant associations seen between carbohydrate intake and mortality (p_trend=0.69) and between saturated fat intake and CVD (p_trend=0.29) or mortality (p_trend=0.25).

Both increasing saturated fat and carbohydrate intake were significantly inversely associated with hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and obesity (p_trend<0.01 for all).