Association Between Fruit And Vegetable Consumption And The Metabolic Syndrome

Objective: Several epidemiological cross-sectional studies have been carried out to evaluate the association of fruit and vegetable consumption with risk of the metabolic syndrome(Met S),but the results remain controversial.The present study performed an analysis of cross-sectional study and a Meta-analysis of cross-sectional studies to investigate this association.Methods: In cross-sectional study analysis,we collected the data including 4840 participants from 2007-2008 and 2009-2010 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(NHANES)for the association between fruit or vegetable consumption and risk of Met S,univariate and multivariate Logistics regression were performed in this analysis to investigate the associations between different consumption of fruits or vegetables and the risk of the Met S.In the meta-analysis,we searched Pub Med,EMBASE,and Web of Science databases for relevant available articles.The appropriate articles were selected according to the literature search strategy and inclusion criteria.Two investigators extracted key data from retrieved studies and conducted meta-analysis.Fixed-effects model was used to calculate the pooled results,the I2 of Higgins and Thompson was adopted to assess the heterogeneity between studies.Potential small-study effect was evaluated using Egger regression asymmetry test and visual inspection of funnel plot.Results: In cross-sectional study analysis,the multivariate logistic regression of cross-sectional study revealed that when compared rarely,sometimes,most of the time,always consumption of fruits with never consumption of fruits,the ORs with 95% CIs of the Met S were [0.50(0.13-1.95),P=0.31],[0.54(0.17-1.75),P=0.29],[0.66(0.21-2.04),P=0.45],[0.54(0.18-1.69),P=0.28],respectively.When compared rarely,sometimes,most of the time,always consumption of vegetables with the never consumption of vegetables,the ORs with 95% CIs of the Met S were [1.18(0.71-1.95),P=0.52],[1.11(0.68-1.80),P=0.66],[1.15(0.62-2.16),P=0.64],[1.08(0.64-1.80),P=0.77] respectively.In the meta-analysis,a total of 14 studies were identified as eligible for the present meta-analysis,including 9 studies for fruit consumption,9 studies for vegetable consumption and 5 studies for fruit and vegetable consumption,all studies were cross-sectional studies,involving 40507 participants(7353 cases)from Asia,Europe,North America and South America.The pooled ORs with 95% CIs of the Met S for the highest versus lowest category were [0.85(0.80-0.90),I2 = 13.1%,P=0.325] for fruit consumption,[0.84(0.79-0.90),I2 = 0.0%,P=0.853] for vegetable consumption and [0.74(0.68-0.81),I2 = 0.0%,P=0.643] for fruit and vegetables consumption,respectively.In subgroup analyses stratified by continent where the study was conducted,the inverse association of fruit consumption [0.84(0.77-0.90)] and vegetables consumption[0.84(0.78-0.91)] with risk of the Met S remained significant in Asia.With regard to age of the population,higher consumption of fruits was inversely associated with risk of the Met S both in adults [0.82(0.75-0.90)] and in adolescents [0.87(0.81-0.94)],higher consumption of vegetables was also inversely associated with risk of the Met S both in adults [0.88(0.80-0.96)] and in adolescents [0.80(0.72-0.89)].In the influence analyses,no individual study had excessive influence on the above-mentioned aggregate results.Conclusions: The cross-sectional study analysis showed no significant relationship between fruit consumption or vegetable consumption and the risk of the Met S.The meta-analysis indicates that fruit or/and vegetable consumption may be inversely associated with risk of the Met S,respectively.It suggests that people should intake more fruits and vegetables to decrease risk of the MetS.