Prospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Diabetes. Jun 15, 2019; 10(6): 362-375
Published online Jun 15, 2019. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v10.i6.362
Prospective study of total and various types of vegetables and the risk of metabolic syndrome among children and adolescents
Somayeh Hosseinpour-Niazi, Bahar Bakhshi, Ekbal Betru, Parvin Mirmiran, Mina Darand, Fereidoun Azizi
Somayeh Hosseinpour-Niazi, Bahar Bakhshi, Ekbal Betru, Mina Darand, Nutrition and Endocrine Research center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 19395-4763, Iran
Parvin Mirmiran, Department of Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Nutrition Sciences and Food Technology, National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 19395-4763, Iran
Fereidoun Azizi, Endocrine Research Center, Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 19395-4763, Iran
Author contributions: Mirmiran P and Hosseinpour-Niazi S designed the study; Hosseinpour-Niazi S, Bakhshi B, and Betru E performed the research; Hosseinpour-Niazi S and Darand M analyzed the data; Hosseinpour-Niazi S wrote the paper; Mirmiran P and Aziz F revised the manuscript for final submission.
Supported by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran, No. 12508.
Institutional review board statement: Study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the Research Institute for Endocrine Sciences (RIES), Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Informed consent statement: Written informed consent was acquired from participants prior to their inclusion in the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Parvin Mirmiran, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Clinical Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Nutrition Sciences and Food Technology, National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, No. 24, A’rabi St, Yeman Av, Velenjak, Tehran 19395-4763, Iran. mirmiran@endocrine.ac.ir
Telephone: +98-21-22357484 Fax: +98-21-22416264
Received: March 12, 2019
Peer-review started: March 15, 2019
First decision: April 13, 2019
Revised: May 9, 2019
Accepted: May 14, 2019
Article in press: May 14, 2019
Published online: June 15, 2019
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Data available on the association between consumption of various types of vegetables and metabolic syndrome (MetS) remain inconsistent.

AIM

To investigate the association between the intake of various types of vegetables and MetS among children and adolescents and MetS.

METHODS

The Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study cohort included 424 children and adolescents initially free of MetS. At the 3.6 year follow-up, 47 new cases of MetS were identified. A 168-item semi-quantitative food-frequency questionnaire was used to collect information about total and various types of vegetables consumed, including allium-, green leafy-, fruity-, root-, stalk-, starchy-, potatoes, and cabbage. MetS was defined according to the Cook et al[32] criteria.

RESULTS

The median (interquartile range) of total vegetable consumption was 217 (146-344) g/d. After adjustment for demographic characteristics and dietary intake, higher total- (≥ 350 g/d) and higher allium vegetable consumption (≥ 30 g/d) in the fourth quartile were significantly and inversely associated with risk of MetS compared to the first quartile. Consumption of green leafy vegetables in the third (21.4-38.3 g/d) versus the first quartile (≤ 13.5 g/d) demonstrated a significant inverse association with lower risk of MetS in children and adolescents; associations for other types of vegetables consumed were not significant.

CONCLUSION

Consumption of vegetables, especially allium and green leafy vegetables, in sufficient amounts may be beneficial in reducing the risk of MetS among children and adolescents.

Keywords: Metabolic syndrome, Children and adolescents, Vegetable, Allium, Green leafy vegetables

Core tip: Data on the association between vegetable intake as an individual dietary component and metabolic syndrome (MetS) remain inconsistent. This inconsistency of findings may probably be due to a difference in the amounts and specific subgroups of vegetables in different studies. This prospective study of Iranian children and adolescents reported an inverse association between total vegetable consumption and MetS risk. Among vegetable subgroups, consumption of green leafy- and allium vegetables was inversely associated with risk of MetS after adjustment for the main potential confounders.