Eating more oats, fruits in early childhood may raise risk for type 1 diabetes
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Key takeaways:
- The risk for progression to type 1 diabetes increased with higher consumption of rye, oats and fruits for children at high genetic risk.
- More research is needed to better understand the associations.
Young children at high genetic risk for type 1 diabetes may be more likely to progress to the disease based on their dietary intake, according to a presenter at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual meeting.
In a prospective longitudinal analysis, researchers found eating more rye, oats and fruits increased the risk for progression to type 1 diabetes, whereas eating more berries lowered the risk for progression to type 1 diabetes and high consumption of cruciferous vegetables reduced the risk for biochemical islet autoimmunity.
“The foods that we found to be associated with the type 1 disease process are nutritionally very important in the diet of young children,” Suvi M. Virtanen, MD, PhD, MSc, research professor at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, told Healio. “We should urgently find out what is behind the associations and what explains them to be able to prevent the disease.”
Researchers obtained data from 5,674 children with genetic susceptibility to type 1 diabetes participating in the Type 1 Diabetes Prediction and Prevention Study. Dietary intake was assessed through repeated 3-day food records from age 3 months to 6 years. Three endpoints were examined: the presence of islet cell antibodies plus biochemical islet autoimmunity; biochemical islet autoimmunity for multiple islet cell antibodies; and progression to type 1 diabetes.
Of the participants, 247 had islet cell antibodies plus biochemical islet autoimmunity, 206 progressed to biochemical islet autoimmunity for multiple islet cell antibodies and 94 developed type 1 diabetes.
In a final multi-food model, every 1 g/MJ of oats (HR = 1.09; 95% CI, 1.04-1.14) and bananas (HR = 1.07; 95% CI, 1.03-1.11) eaten raised the risk for islet cell antibodies plus biochemical islet autoimmunity. The risk for biochemical islet autoimmunity in multiple islet cell antibodies increased with each 20 g/MJ of fermented dairy consumed (HR = 1.42; 95% CI, 1.12-1.78) and every 1 g/MJ of wheat (HR = 1.1; 95% CI, 1.03-1.18), oats (HR = 1.12; 95% CI, 1.06-1.18) and bananas (HR = 1.07; 95% CI, 1.02-1.12) eaten.
Every 1 g/MJ of cruciferous vegetables eaten lowered the risk for islet cell antibodies plus biochemical islet autoimmunity (HR = 0.83; 95% CI, 0.73-0.94) and biochemical islet autoimmunity for multiple islet cell antibodies (HR = 0.82; 95% CI, 0.7-0.95).
The risk for progression to type 1 diabetes increased with every 1 g/MJ increase in rye (HR = 1.27; 95% CI, 1.07-1.5), oats (HR = 1.15; 95% CI, 1.03-1.26) and fruit (HR = 1.05; 95% CI, 1.01-1.09) intake. Consumption of every 1 g/MJ of berries lowered the risk for type 1 diabetes progression (HR = 0.67; 95% CI, 0.5-0.93).
“We were surprised that all the main direct (causative) associations and indirect (protective) associations were independent of each other and other foods,” Virtanen said. “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that several foods, representing the whole diet, has been looked at the same time when studying the development of type 1 diabetes.”
Virtanen said providers should not make dietary recommendations for children at high genetic risk for type 1 diabetes, as more research is needed to further examine the associations found in the study.
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Virtanen SM, et al. EP289. Presented at: European Association for the Study of Diabetes Annual Meeting; Sept. 9-13, 2024; Madrid, Spain.
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