Food insecurity, diet quality, and suboptimal diabetes management among US adults with diabetes

A healthy diet is recommended to support diabetes management, including HbA1c, blood pressure, and cholesterol (ABC) control, but food insecurity is a barrier to consuming a healthy diet. We determined the prevalence of food insecurity and diet quality among US adults with diabetes and the associations with ABC management.

Cross-sectional analyses were conducted among 2075 adults ≥20 years with diagnosed diabetes who participated in the 2013-2018 National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Food insecurity was assessed using a standard questionnaire and diet quality was assessed using quartiles of the 2015 Healthy Eating Index. Adjusted ORs (aOR, 95% CI) were calculated from logistic regression models to determine the association between household food insecurity/diet quality and the ABCs while controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, healthcare utilization, smoking, medication for diabetes, blood pressure, or cholesterol, and body mass index.

Overall, 17.6% of adults had food insecurity/low diet quality; 14.2% had food insecurity/high diet quality; 33.1% had food security/low diet quality; and 35.2% had food security/high diet quality. Compared with adults with food security/high diet quality, those with food insecurity/low diet quality were significantly more likely to have HbA1c ≥7.0% (aOR=1.85, 95% CI 1.23 to 2.80) and HbA1c ≥8.0% (aOR=1.79, 95% CI 1.04 to 3.08); food insecurity/high diet quality was significantly associated with elevated HbA1c; and food security/low diet quality with elevated A1c.

Food insecurity, regardless of diet quality, was significantly associated with elevated A1c. For people with food insecurity, providing resources to reduce food insecurity could strengthen the overall approach to optimal diabetes management.