Study: Metabolites better reflect consumption of the Mediterranean diet during pregnancy compared to self-reported dietary measures
Published: 15 Feb 2023
A Mediterranean diet is a dietary pattern characterised by high intakes of olive oils, nuts, fruits and vegetables, legumes, fish, and whole grains. For pregnant individuals, interventional studies have suggested protective effects of adhering to the Mediterranean diet during pregnancy, on the reduced risks of gestational diabetes, gestational disorders of hypertension, preterm birth, and better birth outcomes.
Metabolites are small molecules within the human cells, biofluids, tissues, or organisms. Collectively, they may objectively reflect one’s overall metabolism status. Researchers often use an individual’s self-reported information to evaluate the adherence to the Mediterranean diet, but this is often subject to errors and recall bias. As such, identifying metabolites associated with the Mediterranean diet as objective measures is critical.
Homing in on this, a research team led by Professor Cuilin Zhang, Director of the Global Centre for Asian Women’s Health (GloW) and a professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine), and Associate Professor Liwei Chen from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in collaboration with investigators from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), investigated the association of maternal plasma metabolites with the Mediterranean diet in pregnant individuals.
In this prospective study of racially diverse pregnant individuals, the researchers assessed participant’s degree of adherence to the Mediterranean diet during their first- and second-trimesters. They scored them according to the alternate Mediterranean diet index – a score based on the intake of nine items: vegetables, legumes, fruit and nuts, dairy, cereals, meat and meat products, fish, alcohol, and the ratio of monounsaturated to saturated fat.
Concentrations of some metabolites were positively associated with the alternate Mediterranean diet index score, while the concentrations of the others were inversely associated with the score, reflecting the complex maternal physiology during pregnancy.
“Our findings identified several metabolites that may serve as novel objective assessment to quantify the adherence to Mediterranean diet among pregnant individuals. These findings also provide insights into distinct pathways that explain the underlying associations of the Mediterranean diet with various pregnancy complications,” said Professor Zhang, the senior author of this study.
Read more in the press release here.
