TUESDAY, July 16, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- Certain dietary patterns may protect against inflammation and heart disease in adults with type 1 diabetes, according to a study presented during NUTRITION 2024, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition, held from June 29 to July 2 in Chicago.
Arpita Basu, Ph.D., from the University of Nevada in Las Vegas, and colleagues used data from participants in the Coronary Artery Calcification in Type 1 Diabetes study (563 participants with T1D; 692 controls) to assess longitudinal associations between healthy dietary patterns with biomarkers of inflammation and atherosclerosis.
The researchers found that when adjusting for age, sex, calories, body mass index, follow-up time, blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking status, and physical activity, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) dietary scores were inversely associated with homocysteine in adults with and without T1D (percent change for controls: −0.53; T1D: −0.57). There was also an inverse relationship between DASH scores and plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 in the control group (percent change: −0.99).
“There is an urgent need to address dietary quality in adults with type 1 diabetes," Basu said in a statement. "In a clinical setting, assessing dietary intakes using the DASH and Mediterranean dietary checklists could be an effective way to identify gaps and improve intakes."