The relationship between pre-pregnancy dietary patterns adherence and risk of gestational diabetes mellitus in Iran: A case-control study.

AIM: The present study aimed to investigate major dietary patterns and their association with risk of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) in Yazd city located in Iran.

METHODS: This case-control designed study was conducted at six healthcare centres. Two hundred and seventy-eight pregnant women who referred for GDM screening participated. Dietary assessment was carried out by using a 67-item validated food frequency questionnaire to evaluate dietary history of participants during the last year. Principal component analysis was used to identify major food patterns. Multivariable logistic regression model was employed to identify the association between dietary patterns and risk of GDM.

RESULTS: Two major dietary patterns were detected. The Western dietary pattern was associated with higher intakes of sugar-sweetened beverages, refined grain products, fast foods, salty snacks, sweets and biscuit, mayonnaise and saturated oils, while the prudent dietary pattern was associated with higher intakes of fruits, low-fat dairy, potato, egg, fish, poultry, nuts, organs meat and red meat. Furthermore, prudent dietary pattern was negatively associated with GDM risk (OR = 0.88, 95% CI: 0.44-0.99). However, there was no significant association between adherence of the Western dietary pattern and risk of GDM.

CONCLUSIONS: Pre-pregnancy adherence of the prudent dietary pattern was significantly associated with reduced risk of GDM.