Adherence to Mediterranean diet in HIV infected patients: Relation with nutritional status and cardiovascular risk

The Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) has been associated to a lower prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MS) and a lower cardiovascular risk (CVR). Our aim was to assess HIV infected individual's adherence to the MedDiet and its relationship with nutritional status and CVR.

Clinical and anthropometric data were collected and a nutritional assessment was performed. Adherence to the MedDiet was assessed using the questionnaire MedDietScore, ranging from 0 to 55, where higher scores indicated a higher adherence. CVR was estimated for each patient using the Framingham Risk Score (FRSs-CVD).

We included 571 individuals, mostly males (67.1%; n = 383). MedDiet adherence score was 27.5 ± 5.5 points. The proportion of overweight/obese individuals was 40.3% (n = 230) and MS 33.9% (n = 179); CVD estimation showed that 53.2% (n = 304), 30.1% (n = 172) and 16.6% (n = 95) of patients had a low, moderate and very high CVR, respectively. The group with BMI below 25 kg/m² presented lower adherence to MedDiet and patients within moderate CVR category and with MS presented a higher adherence to MedDiet.

Overall we found a moderate adherence to the Mediterranean diet. A higher adherence was associated to individuals with a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m², those with MS and to patients with moderate to high cardiovascular risk, suggesting the adoption of this food pattern in the presence of comorbidities.