• The demographic risk factors of pro-inflammatory diet: A Cross-sectional Study on Fasa Adults Cohort Study (FACS)
  • Hossein Pourmontaseri,1 Matin Sepehrinia,2 Reza Homayounfar,3,* Mohammad Mehdi Naghizadeh,4 azizallah dehghan,5
    1. 1. Student Research Committee, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran. 2. Projects Support Division, Medical Students Association, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran. 3. Shiraz Nutrition Interest Group, Bitab Enterprise, Shiraz, Iran.
    2. 1. Student Research Committee, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran. 2. Projects Support Division, Medical Students Association, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran. 3. Shiraz Nutrition Interest Group, Bitab Enterprise, Shiraz, Iran.
    3. National Nutrition and Food Technology Research Institute (WHO Collaborating Center), Faculty of Nutrition Sciences and Food Technology, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
    4. Non-Communicable Diseases Research Center, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran
    5. Non-Communicable Diseases Research Center, Fasa University of Medical Sciences, Fasa, Iran


  • Introduction: Considering the effect of micro- and macro-nutrients such as carbohydrates, fiber, fatty acids, vitamin B12, niacin, zinc, etc., and energy intake on inflammatory biomarkers, the Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) was developed to indicate diet's pro- or anti-inflammatory effects. The association between the pro-inflammatory diet and chronic diseases has been an attractive topic for researchers in the last few years. Several studies have linked the pro-inflammatory diet (higher DII) with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancers. However, there is limited evidence addressing the sociodemographic risk factors for a pro-inflammatory diet. To prevent chronic diseases through dietary interventions, it is necessary to determine the high-risk populations for consuming a pro-inflammatory diet who are vulnerable to chronic noncommunicable diseases, but the findings about the risk factors of the pro-inflammatory diet are still limited to the crude associations investigated in some studies.
  • Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on the FACS with 10,138 participants from Sheshdeh, Fasa, Iran. After excluding the participants with missing data, the remaining participants were divided into a pro-inflammatory diet (higher than the median of DII) and an anti-inflammatory diet (higher than the median of DII). The sociodemographic characteristics, including, age (year), gender (men, women), ethnicity (Turkish, Arab, Fars, and others), marital status (single, married, widow, and divorced), occupation (having job or not), education (no education, primary school, secondary school, university), and physical activity (metabolic equivalent of tasks) was included. Also, the Dietary Inflammatory Index was calculated based on the Shivappa et al. study in 2013. The data of the present study were recorded and analyzed in SPSS v.23. The qualitative and quantitative variables were reported as frequency (percent) and mean (standard deviation or standard error) or median (Quartile). The Wald regression model was used to investigate the most associated features among included demographic variables. The significant level was considered as a P value < 0.05.
  • Results: The final studied population (10030 participants with a mean age of 48.6±10.0 years) included 4523 (45.1%) men. The mean of EDII was -0.278±2.07, ranging from -6.5 to 5.6. The Wald Regression revealed that being a man (OR: 1.120, 95%Confidence Interval: [1.005,1.248], P-value: 0.040) and having higher age (OR: 1.011, 95%Confidence Interval: [1006, 1.015], P-value: <0.001), lower physical activity (OR: 0.988, 95%Confidence Interval: [0.984, 0.992], P-value:<0.001), better socioeconomic status (OR: 1.094, 95%Confidence Interval: [1.072,1.115], P-value:<0.001), and having no job (OR: 1.183, 95%Confidence Interval: [1.055,1.327], P-value:0.004) had the most significant association with pro-inflammatory diet.
  • Conclusion: The present study showed that demographic features had an important role in having a pro-inflammatory diet. Therefore, further studies are required to focus on the mechanism of these differences and design further nutritional interventions to provide an anti-inflammatory for these vulnerable groups.
  • Keywords: nutrition, prevention, public health, demographic features