Associations between company at dinner and daily diet quality in Dutch men and women from the NQplus study.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: Consuming the evening meal in the company of others has been associated with overall diet quality. Nevertheless, studies on the association between type of company at dinner and diet quality in adults are scarce. SUBJECTS/METHODS: Dutch men (n=895) and women (n=845) aged between 20 and 70 years, included in a population-based observational study, were studied. Dietary intake was assessed by multiple 24-h recalls (6013 recalls) to estimate the Dutch Healthy Diet index (0-80 points) representing daily diet quality. Sex-specific linear mixed models adjusting for covariates were calculated. Out-of-home dinners and company at dinner were strongly associated (r=0.66), and hence in additional analyses, out-of-home dinners were excluded to avoid multicollinearity. RESULTS: Among men, daily diet quality was similar when dinners were consumed in company or consumed alone, but higher when dinner was accompanied by family (mean 46.0, s.e. 0.3) than when dinner was accompanied by others (mean 42.3, s.e. 0.7; P=0.001). Adjustment for dinner location attenuated this association, but it remained significant when excluding out-of-home dinners. Among women, daily diet quality was lower when dinner was consumed in company (mean 48.9, s.e. 0.3) than when consumed alone (mean 51.1, s.e. 0.6; P<0.001). Dinners consumed in the company of family were associated with higher daily diet quality (mean 49.3, s.e. 0.4) than dinners consumed with others (mean 45.7, s.e. 0.6; P=0.001). These associations persisted when excluding out-of-home dinners. CONCLUSIONS: Only among women, dinners consumed alone as compared with dinners in company were associated with higher diet quality. In both men and women, dinners consumed with family were associated with higher diet quality as compared with dinners with others.

Adherence to the Dutch dietary guidelines is inversely associated with 20-year mortality in a large prospective cohort study.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVES: The Dutch guidelines for a healthy diet aim to reduce major chronic diseases. However, supporting evidence on their overall association with all-cause and cause-specific mortality is limited. Recently, the Dutch Healthy Diet-index (DHD-index) has been developed to assess adherence to these guidelines. The aim was to examine the association between the DHD-index and all-cause mortality and deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD), coronary heart disease (CHD), stroke and cancer. SUBJECTS/METHODS: We followed 3593 men and women aged 55 years and older enrolled in the Rotterdam Study, a population-based prospective cohort study, from baseline in 1990-1993 to 2011. A validated 170-item food frequency questionnaire at baseline was used to calculate the DHD-index score (maximum 90 points). Cox proportional hazard models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) adjusting for age, sex, total energy intake, smoking and educational level. RESULTS: During the 20-year follow-up, 1831 (51%) deaths were reported. Mean DHD-index score was 60.6 (s.d. 10.6). The score was inversely associated with all-cause mortality (highest vs lowest quartile HR 0.77; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.67, 0.89). Inverse but non-significant associations were observed for mortality due to CVD (HR 0.74; 95% CI 0.55, 1.01), CHD (HR 0.60; 95% CI 0.34, 1.06) and stroke (HR 0.67; 95% CI 0.36, 1.22), whereas no association was observed with cancer mortality (HR 0.99; 95% CI 0.90, 1.11). CONCLUSIONS: A higher level of adherence to the Dutch dietary guidelines, as assessed with the DHD-index, was associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality, probably due to an inverse association with cardiovascular causes of death.