Cardiovascular risk factors in relation to dietary patterns in 50-year-old men and women: a feasibility study of a short FFQ.

OBJECTIVE

We aimed to assess the feasibility of a simple new fifteen-item FFQ as a tool for screening risk of poor dietary patterns in a healthy middle-aged population and to investigate how the results of the FFQ correlated with cardiovascular risk factors and socio-economic factors.

DESIGN

A randomized population-based cross-sectional study. Metabolic measurements for cardiovascular risk factors and information about lifestyle were collected. A fifteen-item FFQ was created to obtain information about dietary patterns. From the FFQ, a healthy eating index was created with three dietary groups: good, average and poor. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess relationships between dietary patterns and cardiovascular risk factors.

SETTING

Sweden.

SUBJECTS

Men and women aged 50 years and living in Gothenburg, Sweden.

RESULTS

In total, 521 middle-aged adults (257 men, 264 women) were examined. With good dietary pattern as the reference, there was a gradient association of having obesity, hypertension and high serum TAG in those with average and poor dietary patterns. After adjustment for education and lifestyle factors, individuals with a poor dietary pattern still had significantly higher risk (OR; 95 % CI) of obesity (2·33; 1·10, 4·94), hypertension (2·73; 1·44, 5·20) and high serum TAG (2·62; 1·33, 5·14) compared with those with a good dietary pattern.

CONCLUSIONS

Baseline data collected by a short FFQ can predict cardiovascular risk factors in middle-aged Swedish men and women. The FFQ could be a useful tool in health-care settings, when screening for risk of poor dietary patterns.