Abstract
Youth with diabetes are at an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Adherence to the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet has been shown to improve CVD risk. In this study, we evaluated whether changes in diet quality as characterized by DASH are associated with changes in CVD risk factors in youth with diabetes over time. Longitudinal mixed models were applied to data from 797 participants in the SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth Study representing three time points: baseline, 12- and 60-month follow-up. Data were restricted to youth whose diabetes was first diagnosed in 2002–2005. DASH-related adherence was poor and changed very little over time. However, an increase in DASH diet score was significantly associated with a decrease in HbA1c levels in youth with type 1 diabetes (β=−0.20, P-value=0.0063) and a decrease in systolic blood pressure among youth with type 2 diabetes (β=−2.02, P-value=0.0406). Improvements in dietary quality may be beneficial in youth with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. However, further work in larger groups of youth with type 1 and 2 diabetes is desirable.
Highlights
Observational studies and clinical trials have shown that adherence to the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet is associated with improved cardiovascular health and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in adults and youth.[1,2,3,4]
Dietary quality at baseline was poor with a mean of 39.8 (s.d. 1⁄4 9.0) for youth with type 1 diabetes and 36.4 (s.d. 1⁄4 9.6) for youth with type 2 diabetes
Several CVD risk factors increased over time in youth with type 1 diabetes, including blood pressure (BP), total cholesterol, triglycerides and hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) levels
Summary
Observational studies and clinical trials have shown that adherence to the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet is associated with improved cardiovascular health and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in adults and youth.[1,2,3,4] Youth with diabetes are at an increased risk of developing CVD.[5]. A few studies have examined the association of a DASH-like diet and hypertension in youth and adolescents;[7,9,10,11] no study has examined several CVD risk factors and DASH prospectively in youth with or without diabetes. This study investigated whether change in a DASH diet score was associated with change in CVD risk over multiple time points
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