This study will use data from a UK birth cohort (ALSPAC) to examine how diet quality throughout childhood, assessed using dietary patterns, is related to conventional and novel cardiometabolic risk factors in adolescence and early adulthood.

CACH Team: Genevieve Buckland, Kate Northstone, Caroline Taylor, Pauline Emmett and Laura Johnson.

This study will examine how diet quality during childhood influences factors in adolescence and early adulthood that are related to the development of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. These include being overweight/obese, changes in the blood vessels, and raised blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, collectively termed ‘cardiometabolic risk factors’. We will explore the relationship between five major dietary patterns and cardiometabolic risk factors by using data collected from ≈3000 participants in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC). Our findings will contribute to the scientific evidence needed to help young people adopt healthy eating habits and reduce heart disease/diabetes later in life.  

Publications

Buckland G et al. The inflammatory potential of the diet in childhood is associated with cardiometabolic risk in adolescence/young adulthood in the ALSPAC birth cohort.  Eur J Nutr. 2022 Oct;61(7):3471-3486. doi: 10.1007/s00394-022-02860-9.

Buckland G et al. Prospective association between a Mediterranean-style dietary score in childhood and cardiometabolic risk in young adults from the ALSPAC birth cohort. Eur J Nutr. 2022; 61(2):737-752. doi: 10.1007/s00394-021-02652-7.

Buckland G et al. The relationship between dietary intakes and plasma concentrations of PUFA in school-age children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) cohort. Br J Nutr. 2021; 17:1-11. doi: 10.1017/S0007114521002191. 

Press release: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/news/2021/children-omega3.html