TOPLINE:
The risk for type 2 diabetes (T2D) was higher in individuals who followed a pro-inflammatory diet and had a high habitual salt intake than in those who followed an anti-inflammatory diet and used less salt.
METHODOLOGY:
- High scores on the dietary inflammatory index (DII) — a scoring system that measures the inflammatory potential of an individual’s diet — and high salt intake are associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk; however, studies investigating the association between DII and salt intake with incident T2D risk are scarce.
- Researchers investigated the association between a pro-inflammatory diet, habitual salt intake, and the risk for T2D among 171,094 participants from the UK Biobank (mean age, 55.98 years; 40.7% men).
- Participants were free of diabetes at baseline, had completed at least one dietary recall questionnaire, and were followed up for a median period of 13.5 years.
- The energy-adjusted DII was calculated on the basis of 28 food and nutrient parameter-specific scores, while habitual salt intake was assessed through self-reported frequency of adding salt to foods.
- Any newly diagnosed cases of T2D were considered the first occurrences of health outcomes.
TAKEAWAY:
- Incident cases of T2D were reported in 6216 individuals over the median follow-up period.
- The risk of developing T2D was 18% higher in individuals who followed a pro-inflammatory vs anti-inflammatory diet (adjusted hazard ratio [HR], 1.18; 95% CI, 1.11-1.25); the risk for T2D was elevated by 4% for each one-point increment in the energy-adjusted DII.
- Compared with participants who never or rarely added salt to foods, the risk for T2D increased gradually in those who sometimes (HR, 1.10; 95% CI, 1.04-1.16), usually (HR, 1.14; 95% CI, 1.05-1.24), and always (HR, 1.30; 95% CI, 1.15-1.47) added salt to foods.
- The risk for T2D was the highest in participants who followed a pro-inflammatory diet and always added salt to foods (HR, 1.60; 95% CI, 1.32-1.90) compared with those who followed an anti-inflammatory diet and never or rarely added salt to foods.
IN PRACTICE:
“Our findings indicate that a pro-inflammatory diet and higher habitual salt intake were associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes. These results support the public health promotion of an anti-inflammatory diet and reducing salt intake to prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes,” the authors wrote.
SOURCE:
This study was led by Wenqui Shen, MD, from the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China, and published online in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.
LIMITATIONS:
Data from a 24-hour dietary recall questionnaire were used to calculate the energy-adjusted DII, which might have led to incidences of incorrect reporting. This study could not measure all components of the DII score. Unmeasured variables and residual confounders might also be present, which were not considered in this analysis.
DISCLOSURES:
This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, Project of Biobank from the Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, and other sources. The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.