Major dietary patterns in relation to preeclampsia among Iranian pregnant women: a case–control study

Abstract

Background

Preeclampsia is a pregnancy disorder that increases the risk of prenatal and maternal complications. Therefore, prevention of preeclampsia requires identifying its preventable risk factors such as dietary patterns.

Objective

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the major dietary patterns and preeclampsia.

Study design

In this case–control study, the dietary patterns of a total of 510 pregnant women were investigated. Data on their dietary intake, sociodemographics, and daily physical activity levels were collected using a 198 item semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire, a sociodemographic questionnaire, and a physical activity questionnaire, respectively. To identify the major dietary patterns and to model the relationship between dietary patterns and preeclampsia, factor analysis and unconditional logistic regression were employed, respectively. The three major dietary patterns identified were as follows: healthy dietary pattern (i.e. high in fruits, low-fat dairy, dried fruits, nuts, vegetables, fruit juice, liquid oil, and tomatoes), western dietary pattern (i.e. high in red meat, processed meat, fried potatoes, and pickles), and Iranian traditional dietary pattern (i.e. high in eggs, potatoes, and legumes).

Results

After adjustment for confounding factors, we found that with an increase in the healthy dietary pattern score, the odds of preeclampsia were reduced to 87.5% (OR = 0.125, 95%CI: 0.070–0.221, p < .001); with an increase in the western dietary pattern score, the odds of preeclampsia were increased 5.99 times (OR = 5.99, 95%CI: 3.414–10.53, p < .001); and with an increase in the Iranian traditional dietary pattern score, the odds of preeclampsia were reduced to 81.7% (OR = 0.183, 95%CI: 0.109–0.308, p < .001).

Conclusion

The findings showed that the western dietary pattern had a direct relationship and the healthy and Iranian traditional patterns had a reverse relationship with preeclampsia.

Keywords:

• Blood pressure
• dietary patterns
• preeclampsia
• pregnant women

Acknowledgments

This manuscript is extracted from a master’s thesis in nutrition and is supported by Urmia University of Medical Sciences. The authors would like to express their gratitude toward Farzad Ebrahimzadeh for the statistical data analysis and Parastu Dorrimanesh for English editing of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by Urmia University of Medical Sciences.