Adherence to Portfolio diet and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus in a population-based prospective cohort study.

Background: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) poses significant global health challenges, with its rising prevalence linked closely to lifestyle and dietary factors. The Portfolio Diet, a plant-based dietary regimen known to lower cholesterol and cardiovascular disease, may also offer protective effects against T2DM, though limited research has explored this potential association. This study investigates the relationship between adherence to the Portfolio Diet and T2DM risk within the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study (TLGS) during 8.9 years of follow-up, a population-based prospective study.

Methods: This analysis included 2,188 T2DM-free adults, aged ≥ 21. Dietary intake was assessed using a validated and reliable FFQ, and adherence to the Portfolio Diet was evaluated through a Portfolio Diet Score (PDS) derived from the dietary intake data. Cox proportional hazard models, adjusted for demographic and lifestyle factors, were employed to assess the association between PDS and T2DM risk.

Results: Overall PDS were not statistically significantly associated with T2DM risk across the tertiles in fully adjusted models (HR = 0.91; 95%CI: 0.64-1.31, P trend = 0.610). Analysis of individual PDS components indicated an inverse association between nuts intake and T2DM risk in the highest tertile (HR = 0.72, 95% CI: 0.51-0.99; P trend = 0.050). Other components, including plant protein, viscose fiber, monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), and total phytosterols, did not show significant associations with T2DM risk in adjusted models.

Conclusions: While overall adherence to the portfolio diet did not significantly reduce T2DM risk in this Middle Eastern cohort, nut consumption was inversely associated with T2DM incidence. These findings indicate that both region-specific dietary patterns and the weighting of components within the Portfolio Diet Score may affect its ability to capture associations with type 2 diabetes risk.

Clinical Trial Number: Not applicable.