Prospetive study of major dietry patterns and risk of coronary heart Essay

Prospetive study of major dietry patterns and risk of coronary heart disease in men (Epidemology case study) - Essay Example Two major dietary patterns were observed: prudent, which is heavy on vegetables, fruits, fish and poultry; and western, loaded with red and processed meats, refined grain, desserts, French fries, and dairy. Increased prudent patterns were found to decrease incidence of CHD while increased western pattern also increased the CHD incidence. Previous researches correlated CHD to single nutrients in the diet. This study considered overall dietary patterns in subjects for 8 years and how these relate to the occurrence of CHD within the study period. Diet plays an important role in disease as observed in disease occurrence in countries that have a distinct dietary pattern. The study is appropriate because it considers the interaction of the different components in the diet taking into consideration food preferences and habitual food use. The study is also very appropriate and timely because of the high incidence of CHD in many countries and therefore nutritional intervention by recommending changes in dietary patterns may be more acceptable to the public. In this study, exposure refers to the dietary patterns; outcome is the incidence of CHD and confounders are other risk factors like smoking, alcohol consumption, total caloric intake, age, level of physical activity, genetics. Notably, the researchers did their best to remove the effects of confounders through factor analysis. The dietary assessment came from food consumption data provided in the FFQ. The FFQ had itemized 131 items further grouped into 40 distinct categories. Factor analysis was done to derive dietary patterns. Factor analysis removes effects due to lifestyle and other risk factors therefore removing confounding effects. FFQ and factor analysis were appropriate for this type and size of experiment. FFQ was shown in previous studies to effectively determine dietary preferences while factor analysis is appropriate in determining the statistical significance by minimizing systematic errors