Adherence to recommendations of the German food pyramid and risk of chronic diseases: results from the EPIC-Potsdam study

Abstract

Background: The German food pyramid was set up to foster and communicate healthy food choices. Methods: The adherence to recommendations of the food pyramid was translated into an index (German Food Pyramid Index (GFPI)) by scoring the ratio of consumed and recommended daily servings of eight food groups, wherein higher scores indicated greater adherence. The GFPI was calculated for 23 531 subjects who participated in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition-Potsdam study and were recruited between 1994 and 1998. Associations between quintiles of GFPI scores and risk of incident cardiovascular diseases (CVD), type-2 diabetes (T2D) and cancer were evaluated using Cox proportional hazard regression models. During 183 740 person-years of follow-up, 363 incident cases of CVD (myocardial infarction or stroke), 837 incident cases of T2D and 844 incident cases of cancer occurred. Results: The GFPI was inversely related to CVD risk in men (multivariable-adjusted hazard ratio (HR) for highest versus lowest quintiles ¼ 0.56; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.34-0.94) but not in women (HR ¼ 1.39; 95% CI: 0.76-2.55). No association between GFPI and cancer was observed. An inverse relation between GFPI and T2D (men: HR ¼ 0.71 (0.52-0.97); women: HR ¼ 0.69 (0.50-0.96)) in age-adjusted models was substantially attenuated after multivariable adjustments, particularly by body mass index (BMI) (men: HR ¼ 0.94 (0.69-1.30); women: HR ¼ 1.09 (0.77-1.54)). The same was observed for overall major chronic disease risk (CVD, T2D and total cancer). Conclusion: Adherence to the German food pyramid recommendations is not associated with a decreased risk of chronic diseases when considering BMI as confounder, except of CVD in men.

Adherence of pregnant women to Nordic dietary guidelines in relation to postpartum weight retention: results from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study

“…When evaluating adherence to specific NFG recommendations, we further distinguished between food groups whose recommendations refers to (1) a minimum, (2) a range, or (3) a maximum of intake (see Figure 1), as described below, which is in line with the scoring algorithm of the German HEI [27]. …”

Adherence to WCRF/AICR Cancer Prevention Recommendations and Risk of Postmenopausal Breast Cancer

“…In previous studies, most diet indexes have not predicted total cancer incidence(1–5) or total cancer mortality,(6, 7) with some exceptions. (8–10) However, in most cases lifestyle indexes that add other modifiable risk factors such as body weight, physical activity and smoking have been found to predict total cancer incidence(11–14) and mortality.…”

Adherence to predefined dietary patterns and incident type 2 diabetes in European populations: EPIC-InterAct Study

“…The few available data suggest that adherence to the aHEI [11], the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet [12, 13], the HEI [11] and the Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI) [14] may lower diabetes risk. No clear associations were observed for the Recommended Food Score [12], the Diet-Quality Index [15] and diet-quality scores, reflecting guidelines from Germany [16] and Australia [17]. Most of these studies were conducted in American populations [11–15] and it has been suggested that associations may differ between heterogeneous populations such as different ethnic groups [13, 15].…”