Dietary factors determining diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance. A 20-year follow-up of the Finnish and Dutch cohorts of the Seven Countries Study.
Department of Chronic Diseases and Environmental Epidemiology, National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
To investigate the role of diet as a predictor of glucose intolerance and non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM).
At the 30-year follow-up survey of the Dutch and Finnish cohorts of the Seven Countries Study, in 1989/1990, men were examined according to a standardized protocol including a 2-h oral glucose tolerance test. Information on habitual food consumption was obtained using the cross-check dietary history method. Those 338 men in whom information on habitual diet was also available 20 years earlier were included in this study. Subjects known as having diabetes in 1989/1990 were excluded from the analyses.
Adjusting for age and cohort, the intake of total, saturated, and monounsaturated fatty acids and dietary cholesterol 20 years before diagnosis was higher in men with newly diagnosed diabetes in the survey than in men with normal or impaired glucose tolerance. After adjustment for cohort, age, past body mass index, and past energy intake, the past intake of total fat was positively associated with 2-h postload glucose level (P