04 Nov Racial Gaps in Dietary Quality Persist or Widen Nationally
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Daniel (Dong) Wang Doctoral Student
Departments of Nutrition and Epidemiology
Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Boston, MA 02115
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: Over the past more than one decade, many changes related to nutrition and food supply have happened and therefore influence individuals’ dietary behaviors and ultmately dietary quality. Also, the changes in dietary quality may impact the disease burden, measured by avoided major chronic disease cases and premature deaths. Therefore, in this study, we were trying to understand
1) how the dietary quality in US population changed from 1999 to 2012, and
2) how changes in dietary quality over time impacted disease and premature death.
The quality of the US diet, measured by the Alternate Healthy Eating Index, improved modestly from 39.9 to 48.2 from 1999 through 2012, but the dietary quality of US population remains far from optimal (the optimal score is 110). There is huge room existing for further improvements. We also found that even the modest improvements in dietary quality that we observed contributed to substantial reductions in disease burden, which is measured by avoided disease cases and premature deaths. We estimated that healthier eating habits cumulatively prevented 1.1 million premature deaths over the 14 years, and the difference in dietary quality between 1999 and 2012 resulted in 12.6% fewer type 2 diabetes cases, 8.6% fewer cardiovascular disease cases, and 1.3% fewer cancer cases. Among different key components of healthy diets, despite a large reduction in consumption of trans fat, as well as a relatively large reduction in sugary beverages, most key components of healthy diets showed only modest or no improvements. The improvement in dietary quality was greater among persons with higher socioeconomic status and healthier body weight. African Americans had the poorest dietary quality, which was accounted for by lower incomes and education. The gaps in dietary quality persisted or even widened from 1999 to 2012.
Medical Research: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Response: In general, our findings on the substantial reduction in disease burden related to improvement in dietary quality provide further justification for promoting healthful diets as a national priority for chronic disease prevention.
For healthcare professionals and patients, the most important takeaway is that even small improvement in dietary quality can lead to substantial reduction in disease risk and disease burden, for example, our data showed that an 8.3-point increase in AHEI could potentially prevent 1.1 million premature deaths. This 8.3-point increase can be easily translated into clinicians’ advice, e.g., increasing fresh vegetable consumption by 2 cups per day.
Medical Research: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: We should keep monitoring the time trend in dietary quality and change in disease burden associated with change in dietary quality, which will provide essential feedback for policy making. It is imperative to conduct further in-depth studies to understand the mechanism that underlies gaps in dietary quality across socioeconomic and race/ethnicity groups, which will inform future policy initiatives and federal nutrition assistance programs to address these disparities.
Citation:
D. Wang, Y. Li, S. E. Chiuve, F. B. Hu, W. C. Willett. Improvements In US Diet Helped Reduce Disease Burden And Lower Premature Deaths, 1999-2012; Overall Diet Remains Poor. Health Affairs, 2015; 34 (11): 1916 DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2015.0640
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Daniel (Dong) Wang (2015). Racial Gaps in Dietary Quality Persist or Widen Nationally
Last Updated on November 4, 2015 by Marie Benz MD FAAD