Cross-Sectional Associations between Dietary Fat-Related Behaviors and Continuous Metabolic Syndrome Score among Young Australian Adults
Sun Y, Magnussen CG, Dwyer T, Oddy WH, Venn AJ, Smith KJ · Nutrients · 2018 July 26
DOI 10.3390/nu10080972
Objective
To investigate the cross-sectional associations between fat-related eating behaviors, such as trimming fat from meat, consuming low-fat dairy, and using different cooking fats, and the continuous metabolic syndrome (cMetSyn) score in young adults.
Conclusions
Higher cMetSyn scores were positively associated with the consumption of low-fat oily dressing among healthy-weight participants and with the frequency of using canola/sunflower oil for cooking among overweight/obese participants. However, following other fat-related dietary recommendations, including trimming fat from meat, cooking with olive oil, cooking with butter, and consuming low-fat dairy products, did not show significant associations with cMetSyn scores in young adults.
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Insights
Young adults using low-fat oily dressings and certain cooking oils are linked to higher metabolic risks without direct relation to their consumptions of low fat dairy, meat, or cooking fats.
The research engaged 2071 participants aged between 26 to 36 years old to report their dietary behaviors like how often they removed visible fat from meat, their intake of low-fat dairy products, and how frequently they used different cooking fats, from 2004 to 2006. The participants also had their blood pressure, weight, and height measured, while a fasting blood sample was taken to create a continuous metabolic syndrome (cMetSyn) score using sex-specific principal component analysis applied to normalized risk factors. This cMetSyn score is designed to depict higher risks with higher scores.
The findings showed that the mean cMetSyn score had positive correlations with those participants who consumed low-fat oily dressings and used canola or sunflower oil for cooking. Interestingly, the researchers found no significant associations between the cMetSyn score and the behaviors of trimming fat from meat, cooking with olive oil or butter, or taking low-fat dairy products. This indicates that metabolic risk among young adults does not necessarily correlate with compliance to traditional fat-related dietary recommendations.
