High rice intake, traditional diet tied to lower CVD risk
10 Dec 2020
A prospective cohort study in China has shown that traditional dietary pattern and rice consumption are inversely related to cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, while modern dietary pattern and wheat intake are directly associated.
A traditional dietary pattern is characterized by high intake of rice, pork, fish, poultry, and fresh vegetable but low intake of wheat, while a modern dietary pattern involves high intake of fruit, soymilk, and fast food.
Moreover, iron-related dietary pattern (IDP), which is characterized by high intake of fresh vegetable, wheat, legumes, beverage, offal, rice, and whole grain, is not associated with CVD in Chinese adults.
The authors followed 13,055 adults aged ≥20 years in the China Health and Nutrition Survey (open cohort) between 1991 and 2011 (median follow-up, 9 years), with participants entering the cohort at any wave. They obtained dietary intakes from a 3-day, 24-h recall combined with household weighing for oil and condiments. CVD referred to having either myocardial infarction or stroke.
Reduced rank regression and factor analysis were used to derive the two sets of dietary patterns. IDP was generated using iron intake as a response variable. Finally, the association between dietary patterns and CVD risk was analysed using multivariable Cox regression.
CVD developed in 502 participants during 115,368 person-years of follow-up. Two dietary patterns were derived and identified as traditional and modern dietary patterns. Across quartiles of intake, the hazard ratios for CVD were 1.0, 0.84 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.64–1.10), 0.57 (95 percent CI, 0.42–0.77), and 0.58 (95 percent CI, 0.42–0.79) for traditional dietary pattern (ptrend<0.001) and 1.0, 1.56 (95 percent CI, 1.16–2.09), 1.56 (95 percent CI, 1.13–2.141), and 1.68 (95 percent CI, 1.16–2.44) for modern dietary pattern (ptrend=0.118).
IDP intake did not correlate with CVD. Comparing extreme quartiles, high rice intake was associated with halved risk of CVD, while wheat intake correlated with a doubled risk.