Dietary imbalance in some communities of Transylvania

The relationship between diet intake and nutritional needs may be the most important factor which influences the health status from a nutritional point of view. Essential for maintaining health status is to keep this two constituents in balance. To evaluate the diet and nutritional status, we enrolled in an observational cross-sectional study, a population of 312 people, 202 females and 110 males, categorized by age (20-40 years, 41-65 years and over 65 years) and by physical exertion (low, medium and high). The food intake was under reference values in the case of vegetable proteins (-9.99%), carbohydrates (-24.17%) and energy (-10.29%) and over the reference values of animal fats (+24.15%) in the female population and under the reference values of carbohydrates (-24.44%) and over these values in the case of animal fats (+29.83%), total fats (+13.78%) and animal proteins (+15.02%) in the male population of the study. The investigation of the arterial pressure shows that 18.5% of females and 13.5% of males have arterial hypertension which means that for the entire study population the incidence was 16%. This data correlated with the values of body mass index which were over the normal values in 35.5% of females and 23.5% of males, and in 32.38% of the whole study population, indicated a high percent of overweight and together with the deficiency from the lipids metabolism shows the significance of the effect of the over-intake of fats, especially from animal origin, on the health status and in particular, on the cardiovascular system. On the other hand, the body mass indices were found under the low limits in 23.5% of females and in 15.3% of males, and in 21.3% of the study population, thus the correlation with the low carbohydrate and energy intake is obvious.