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Low dietary fiber intake increased cardiometabolic, CV risk
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Patients who reported a lower amount of daily dietary fiber intake had a higher risk for obesity, metabolic syndrome and CV inflammation, results from a recent cross-sectional study show.
Researchers evaluated data from 23,168 nonpregnant patients aged at least 20 years collected from the 1999-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. All participants had sufficient data for analysis of the effect of dietary fiber intake on inflammation and obesity, and 10,473 participants had sufficient data for analysis of its effect on metabolic syndrome.
Researchers found an approximate 1.3-g increase in daily crude fiber intake between 1999 and 2010, although intake remained below the levels recommended by the Institute of Medicine at all evaluated time points. The mean fiber intake across the cohort was 16.2 g per day.
Mexican Americans reported higher dietary fiber intake (18.8 g) than non-Hispanic whites (16.3 g) or non-Hispanic blacks (13.1 g). Fiber intake also appeared to be higher among men, participants aged at least 51 years, former smokers, those with a bachelor’s degree or higher education, and physically active participants.
Participants in the lowest quintile of dietary fiber intake (between 0 g and 8.1 g per day) had the highest unadjusted prevalence of inflammation (43.5%), obesity (36.4%) and metabolic syndrome (34.7%), with the prevalence of all three decreasing significantly with increasing quintiles.
Multivariate analysis comparing patients within the highest and lowest dietary fiber intake quintiles indicated that greater intake reduced the risk for metabolic syndrome (RR=0.78; 95% CI, 0.69-0.88), inflammation (RR=0.66; 95% CI, 0.61-0.72) and obesity (RR=0.77; 95% CI, 0.71-0.84). The reduction in risk associated with increasing dietary fiber intake for obesity and metabolic syndrome were only statistically significant among white patients, whereas the reduction in inflammation risk was present across all racial/ethnic groups.
“Low dietary fiber intake from 1999-2010 in the US and associations between higher dietary fiber and a lower prevalence of cardiometabolic risks suggest the need to develop new strategies and policies to increase dietary fiber intake,” senior investigator Cheryl R. Clark, MD, ScD, Center for Community Health and Health Equity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, said in a press release. “Additional research is needed to determine effective clinical and population-based strategies for improving fiber intake trends in diverse groups.”
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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