Razi Journal of Medical Sciences

 Introduction: Few studies have investigated the association between dietary patterns, general and central obesity in type 2 diabetic patients. The aim of this study is to determine this relation among type 2 diabetic patients living in Tehran.

 Methods: In this cross-sectional study, 728 patients with type 2 diabetes from the Tehran diabetes centers were participated. Usual dietary intake was assessed by using a validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) during the last year. General obesity was defined as a BMI ≤ 30 kg/m2 and central obesity was defined as waist circumference (WC) ≤ 88 in women and WC≤  102 in men. Factor analysis was used to identify major dietary patterns. The association between dietary patterns and different types of obesity were assessed by logistic regression analysis.

 Findings: Two maijor dietary patterns were identified: Healthy and Unhealthy dietary pattern. After adjustment for confounding variables, we observed a relative risk of 3.2 (OR=3.2, 95% CI=1.7-5.8) and 1.8 (OR=1.8, 95% CI=1.05-3) for general and central obesity when comparing the highest to lowest quintiles of the unhealthy dietary pattern, while subjects in the highest quintile of the healthy dietary pattern scores, had a 56% decreased risk of general obesity compared to those in the lowest (OR=0.44, 95% CI= 0.25-0.76).

 Conclusion: The result of this study indicate that healthy dietary pattern was inversly associated with a risk of general obesity and unhealthy dietary pattern was positively associated with general and central obesity risk.