Title
Racial/ethnic disparities in association between dietary quality and incident diabetes in postmenopausal women in the United States: the Women's Health Initiative 1993-2005
UMMS Affiliation
Department of Medicine, Division of Preventive and Behavioral Medicine
Publication Date
2013-05-22
Document Type
Article
Subjects
Healthcare Disparities; Diet; Women's Health; Diabetes Mellitus
Disciplines
Behavioral Disciplines and Activities | Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms | Community Health and Preventive Medicine | Dietetics and Clinical Nutrition | Epidemiology | Health Services Research | Nutritional and Metabolic Diseases | Preventive Medicine | Women's Health
Abstract
Objective. To examine the association of dietary quality and risk of incident diabetes overall and by race/ethnicity among postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative (WHI).
Research methods and procedures. The WHI recruited 161,808 postmenopausal women between 1993 and 1998, and followed them until 2005. Incident diabetes was determined annually over an average of 7.6 years from enrollment. At baseline, all participants completed a Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ). Dietary quality was assessed by the Alternate Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), calculated from the baseline FFQ responses.
Results. There were 10,307 incident cases of self-reported treated diabetes over 1,172,761 person-years of follow-up. Most participants did not meet the AHEI dietary goals; that is, only 0.1% of women met or exceeded the recommended consumption of vegetables, and few (17.3%) met or exceeded the recommended level for total fiber. After adjusting for potential confounders, women in the highest quintile of the AHEI score were 24% less likely to develop diabetes relative to women in the lowest quintile of AHEI [hazard ratio (HR) = 0.76 (95% CI: 0.70-0.82)]. This association was observed in Whites [HR = 0.74 (95% CI: 0.68-0.82)] and Hispanics [HR = 0.68 (95% CI: 0.46-0.99)], but not in Blacks [HR = 0.85 (95% CI: 0.69-1.05)] or Asians [HR = 0.88 (95% CI: 0.57-1.38)].
Conclusion. These findings support a protective role of healthful eating choices in reducing the risk of developing diabetes, after adjusting for other lifestyle factors, in White and Hispanic postmenopausal women. Future studies are needed to investigate the relationship between dietary quality and risk of diabetes among Blacks and Asians in relationship to other lifestyle factors.
DOI of Published Version
10.1080/13557858.2013.797322
Source
Ethn Health. 2013 May 22. Link to article on publisher's site
Journal/Book/Conference Title
Ethnicity and health
Related Resources
PubMed ID
23697968
Repository Citation
Qiao Y, Tinker LF, Olendzki BC, Hebert JR, Balasubramanian R, Rosal MC, Hingle M, Song Y, Schneider KL, Liu S, Sims S, Ockene JK, Sepavich DM, Shikany JM, Persuitte G, Ma Y. (2013). Racial/ethnic disparities in association between dietary quality and incident diabetes in postmenopausal women in the United States: the Women's Health Initiative 1993-2005. Preventive and Behavioral Medicine Publications. https://doi.org/10.1080/13557858.2013.797322. Retrieved from https://escholarship.umassmed.edu/prevbeh_pp/266