Improved carbohydrate quality tied to better CVD risk factor changes in obese adults with MetS

A robust association exists between improvements in carbohydrate quality index (CQI) and concurrent favourable cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk factor changes maintained over time in overweight/obese adults with metabolic syndrome (MetS), according to a study.

CQI improved during the 12-month follow-up in most participants following an increase in their consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, fish and nuts and a decrease in their intake of refined cereals, added sugars and sugar-sweetened beverages.

At month 6, a decrease was observed in body weight, waist circumference (WC), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP), fasting blood glucose, glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), triglyceride levels, triglycerides and glucose (TyG) index, and TyG-WC across successive quintiles of CQI improvement. Additional improvements were also noted at month 12 for high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and for the ratio of total to HDL cholesterol.

Moreover, there were favourable improvements seen for quintile 5 vs quintile 1 of CQI change for most risk factors, including TyG-WC (standard deviation [SD], –0.20, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], –0.26 to –0.15), HbA1c (SD, –0.16, 95 percent CI, –0.23 to –0.10), weight (SD, –0.12, 95 percent CI, –0.14 to –0.09), systolic BP (SD, –0.11, 95 percent CI, –0.19 to –0.02) and diastolic BP (SD, –0.11, 95 percent CI, –0.19 to –0.04).

This prospective analysis was performed on 5,373 overweight/obese Spanish adults (aged 55–75 years) with MetS. A validated 143-item semiquantitative food-frequency questionnaire was used to obtain dietary intake information. These data were utilized to calculate 6- and 12-month changes in CQI based on four criteria: total dietary fibre intake, glycaemic index, whole grain/total grain ratio, and solid carbohydrate/total carbohydrate ratio.