LAUSR

Background: Previous studies have investigated the association of dietary patterns with risk of diabetes, but have not compared a priori and a posteriori dietary scores in the same diverse population. The objective of this study was to evaluate a priori and a posteriori dietary patterns associations with incident diabetes in the REGARDS study. Methods: This study included 8,875 Black and White adults with available dietary data, without diabetes (defined as fasting glucose>=126 mg/dL, random glucose>=200 mg/dL, or use of diabetes medications) at baseline (2003-2007), and with follow-up (2013-2016) status of diabetes. Dietary patterns were examined by quintile and included a posteriori Plant-based and Southern, as well as a priori scores of Mediterranean Diet Score, Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Diet Score, Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) and Dietary Inflammation Score (DIS). Modified Poisson regression was used to obtain risk ratios for incident diabetes with models adjusted for total energy intake, demographics, and lifestyle factors. Results: The mean (SD) age at baseline was 63.2 (8.5) years, 27.1% were Black, 56.2% were female, and 11.7% had incident diabetes at follow-up. Adherence to the Southern dietary pattern was positively associated with incident diabetes for all models (figure). After adjustment for demographic factors, the highest quintiles of DII and DIS were associated with incident diabetes and the highest quintiles of DASH scores were protective of development of incident diabetes. Conclusion: The Southern dietary pattern derived in REGARDS showed the strongest association with incident diabetes of all the dietary scores and of the a priori scores the DIS showed the strongest association with incident diabetes. The lack of association in adjusted models with the Mediterranean Diet and Plant-based pattern show these scores to be less pertinent. The DIS demonstrates food based dietary inflammation as one of the potential pathways for incident diabetes.