Dietary Patterns of the Portuguese Population with and Without Self Reported Diabetes: Data from the Fourth National Health Interview Survey

Introduction: Given that it is not known how the dietary recommendations are followed in the diabetic population in Portugal, the general purpose of this work was to compare the dietary pattern reported by the Portuguese population with and without self-reported diabetes by combining self reported information about eating habits.
Materials and methods: The study sample was derived from the fourth Portuguese National Health Interview Survey (n=41,193 respondents, aged 15 years and older living in private households). After excluding subjects with incomplete data, the study population comprised 2973 individuals with diabetes (1246 men; 1709 women) and 32244 individuals without diabetes (15536 men; 16708 women). Latent Class Analysis (LCA) statistical techniques were used to classify individuals in different groups.
Results: Two latent classes: unhealthy dietary pattern (class 1) and healthy dietary pattern (class 2) were identified for people with and without diabetes. The highest proportion of participants was classified into the class of unhealthy dietary patterns both in individuals with and without diabetes. Analysis of the diet of people with and without diabetes was made including the following covariates: sex, age, marital status and education level.
Conclusions: The magnitude of the association between class membership and some covariates yielded differences between diabetic and non diabetic groups. Taking into account the larger size of the class denoted by unhealthy dietary patterns, an important gap in dietary habits seems to emerge in this study and suggests that health promotion activities should be tailored to improve dietary patterns of both people with and without diabetes.