Total Nut, Tree Nut, and Peanut Consumption and Metabolic Status in Southern Italian Adults

Agnieszka Micek, Justyna Godos, Achille Cernigliaro, Raffaele Ivan Cincione, Silvio Buscemi, Massimo Libra, Fabio Galvano and Giuseppe Grosso
Additional contact information
Agnieszka Micek: Department of Nursing Management and Epidemiology Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, 31-501 Krakow, Poland
Justyna Godos: Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy
Achille Cernigliaro: Department of Health Service and Epidemiological Observatory, Health Authority Sicily Region, 90145 Palermo, Italy
Raffaele Ivan Cincione: Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, University of Foggia, 71122 Foggia, Italy
Silvio Buscemi: Biomedical Department of Internal and Specialist Medicine (DIBIMIS), University of Palermo, 90123 Palermo, Italy
Massimo Libra: Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy
Fabio Galvano: Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy
Giuseppe Grosso: Department of Biomedical and Biotechnological Sciences, University of Catania, 95123 Catania, Italy

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 4, 1-11

Abstract: Background: Nut consumption has been associated with cardio-metabolic health benefits. However, studies conducted in the Southern Italian population, where adherence to the Mediterranean diet has been reported being relatively high, are rather scarce. The aim of this study was to test the association between consumption of total and specific types of nuts and metabolic status among adults living in Sicily, Southern Italy. Methods: Demographic and dietary characteristics of 2044 adults living in Southern Italy were analyzed. Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to calculate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) of the association between nut consumption and metabolic status adjusting for potential confounding factors. Results: The energy-adjusted model revealed that higher nut intake was inversely associated with occurrence of hypertension, type-2 diabetes, and dyslipidemia. However, the association did not remain significant for the latter after adjusting for the main background characteristics, while an inverse association was stably confirmed for hypertension (OR = 0.61, 95% CI: 0.46–0.80 and OR = 0.44, 95% CI: 0.26–0.74, respectively) even after adjusting for adherence to the Mediterranean diet. Among individual nut types, most of the associations were null except for higher almond intake, which was inversely associated with occurrence of hypertension (OR = 0.70, 95% CI: 0.49–0.99). Conclusions: Higher nut consumption is associated with overall better metabolic status in individuals living in the Mediterranean area.

Keywords: tree nut; peanut; almonds; hypertension; type-2 diabetes; dyslipidemia; Mediterranean diet; polyphenols; phenolic acids; cohort (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1847/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/4/1847/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:4:p:1847-:d:499216

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().