Dietary glycaemic index linked to all-cause death in women

Dietary glycaemic index (GI) or glycaemic load (GL) shows no significant association with all-cause and cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality, according to the results of a systematic review and meta-analysis. However, GI appears to be positively associated with all-cause death in women.

The investigators conducted a comprehensive literature search of the following databases up to September 2018: Medline (PubMed), Scopus, ISI Web of Science, Embase and Google Scholar. Included in the analysis were prospective studies that reported on GI and GL as the exposure and all-cause or CVD mortality as the outcome. Pooled relative risks (RRs) and 95 percent CIs of the outcomes were estimated using the random-effects model.

Eighteen cohort studies including 251,497 participants and reporting 14,774 cases of all-cause death and 3,658 cases of CVD mortality met the eligibility criteria.

Dietary GI was not significantly associated with all-cause death (RR, 1.07, 95 percent CI, 0.96–1.19) and CVD mortality (RR, 1.02, 0.87–1.20). Dietary GL also did not show a significant association with all-cause death (RR, 1.08, 0.93–1.27) or CVD mortality (RR, 1.07, 0.92–1.25).

On the other hand, the highest dietary GI significantly increased the risk of all-cause mortality in women (RR, 1.17, 1.02–1.35) as compared with the lowest dietary GI. Furthermore, no nonlinear association was found between dietary GI or GL and all-cause and CVD mortality (p>0.05).

“Previous findings on the association of dietary GI and GL with mortality are conflicting,” the investigators noted.