Dietary Behaviors Characteristic for the Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

BackgroundThe prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus and borderline diabetes is increasing. The social and economic burden and the shortening of healthy life expectancy due to diabetes mellitus and its complications were concerned worldwide. Dietary instruction to the patients for the prevention of exacerbation emphasized the restriction of calorie intake hitherto. Aside from calorie intake, various dietary behavior and lifestyles are involved in the development of diabetes mellitus and its complications. Therefore, in this study, we investigated that the dietary pattern and other factors of the general population to identify the factors contributing Type 2 diabetes mellitus.MethodsSubjects were recruited at the healthcare center in Kyushu, Japan. 1,058 subjects were involved in this study. The male‐to‐female ratio was 7:3. Administration of the self‐completed questionnaire including the question regarding dietary behavior and medical examination were performed in Japanese subjects aged 40–79 years. The dependent variable of logistic regression was physician‐diagnosed Type 2 diabetes mellitus, and the odds ratios (ORs) were adjusted by age, gender, body mass index, smoking status, physician‐diagnosed hypertension and eight scales of dietary behavior.ResultsAmong the participants, approximately 10% of subjects were diagnosed as type 2 diabetes mellitus and 35% was physician‐diagnosed hypertension. More than 5% of the subjects were suffered by both diseases. Logistic regression analysis revealed that older age, male, higher body mass index, physician‐diagnosed hypertension, frequent eating‐out, and lack of consideration of calorie intake at eating‐out showed significantly high ORs. These ORs maintained significance after adjustment. Additionally, OR of current smoking status became significant by adjustment. These results suggest that the subjects with diabetes mellitus tend to preserve unhealthy lifestyle than those without diabetes. In contrast, increased snack intake and sweetened beverage intake showed significantly lower ORs, and the OR of snack intake lost significance after adjustment. This result suggests that the patients with diabetes mellitus abstained snack and sweetened beverage intake probably due to the physician's instruction. There was no significance in the scores representing salt intake including frequent intake of salted food, seasoning usage, and soup intake (e.g., soup with noodles).ConclusionsThe results illustrate that obese, hypertensive, and older male who is a current smoker is suggested to be a typical patient with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Japan. Although the patients with diabetes mellitus abstained sugar intake, the results showed that they dine out more frequent than those without diabetes mellitus, and do not consider calorie intake at the restaurant. Therefore, the instruction and intervention relating to eating out behavior was required for the patients with diabetes mellitus in Japan.