Dietary Inflammatory Patterns Are Associated With Serum TGs and Insulin in Adults: A Community-Based Study in Taiwan

Dietary patterns related to inflammation have become a focus of disease prevention but the patterns may vary among populations.

The study was conducted to determine Taiwanese dietary inflammatory patterns and evaluate their associations with biomarkers of lipid and glucose.

Data were taken from 5664 community-dwelling individuals aged ≥55 y recruited in 2009-2013 in the Healthy Aging Longitudinal Study in Taiwan (HALST). Dietary data were obtained from an FFQ. An empirical dietary inflammatory pattern (EDIP) was derived from reduced rank regression models that explained the serum high-sensitivity CRP, plasma IL-6, and TNF receptor 1. Cross-sectional associations between dietary scores and biomarkers of total cholesterol (TC); HDL cholesterol; LDL cholesterol; TG; and ratios of TG/HDL cholesterol, TG/TC, fasting glucose, insulin, and HbA1c were analyzed via multiple linear regression and adjusted for major confounders. The false-discovery rate (FDR)-adjusted P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Abdominal obesity was defined as a waist circumference of ≥90 cm for men and ≥80 cm for women.

Higher EDIP-HALST scores were associated with higher TG (per score increment: 1.62%, 95% CI: 0.58%, 2.76%; P_FDR = 0.01), TG/HDL cholesterol (2.01%, 95% CI: 0.67%, 3.37%; P_FDR = 0.01), and TG/TC (1.42%, 95% CI: 0.41%, 2.43%; P_FDR = 0.01) and nonlinearly associated with insulin, with those in the middle tertile had the highest serum insulin concentrations (means: 5.12 μIU/mL, 95% CI: 4.78, 5.78; P_FDR = 0.04) in men, but not in women. No heterogeneity was detected between sexes. The associations with TG (1.23%, 95% CI: 0.19, 2.23%; P_trend = 0.02), TG/HDL cholesterol (1.62%, 95% CI: 0.30%, 2.96%; P_trend = 0.02), and TG/TC (1.11%, 95% CI: 0.11%, 2.13%; P_trend = 0.03) were stronger in participants with abdominal obesity, but were borderline associated in participants with normal abdominal circumferences (all P_trend = 0.05).

Inflammatory diets, as measured via EDIP-HALST, are associated with serum TG concentration, particularly in participants with abdominal obesity. These findings may suggest that developing disease prevention strategies using dietary inflammatory patterns may be different by populations. J Nutr 20xx;x:xx.