Dietary patterns and asthma among Peruvian children and adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Asthma is one of the conditions that contributes to the global burden of respiratory diseases and has been previously associated with diet intake. The goal of this study was to determine the relationship between diet, assessed by a developed score, and asthma in Peruvian children. METHODS: This study was a cross sectional analysis nested within an unmatched case-control study of children in two peri-urban communities of Lima, Peru. We evaluated 767 children and adolescents (573 with asthma, 194 controls) between 9 and 19 years. Diet was assessed using a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ), with food groups classified as "healthy" or "unhealthy". Asthma control, Lung function and atopy were assessed by Asthma Control Test, Spirometry and InmunoCAP 250 test, respectively. RESULTS: Mean age of participants was 13.8 years (SD 2.6). Mean diet score was 5 (SD 1.23; range 2-8). Healthy Diet Score was associated with asthma status [OR 0.83, 95% CI (0.72, 0.95), p = 0.009] in adjusted analysis. Thus, participants with higher HDS, had lower odds of asthma. In sensitivity analyses, when adjusting for atopy, results did not change significantly. [OR 0.85, 95% CI (0.72, 0.99); p = 0.04]. No association between the HDS and asthma control, FEV1, nor FeNO were observed. Atopy did not modify the association between diet and asthma outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: In our study cohort, better diet quality was associated with lower odds of asthma, but was not associated with asthma control. Diet modification may be a potential intervention to impact the increasing prevalence of this disease.

Prevalence of hypertension and controlled hypertension among United States adults: Evidence from NHANES 2017-18 survey.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to compare the prevalence of hypertension (HTN) and controlled hypertension (CHTN) in US adults and determine the absolute difference in the prevalence of HTN and CHTN between the JNC7 and ACC/AHA 2017 guidelines. METHODS: Data for this study were derived from the most recent cycle of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2017-2018. After excluding participants with missing systolic blood pressure (BP) or diastolic BP and aged <18 years, 4730 participants were included in the final analyses. BP was defined as the average of the first three measurements. The prevalence of HTN and CHTN, including absolute differences of these prevalences, were estimated using both JNC7 and ACC/AHA 2017 guidelines. RESULTS: The overall weighted prevalence of HTN was 31.7% (95% CI: 28.7-34.8) based on JNC7, while the corresponding prevalence was 45.6% (95% CI: 43.0-48.3) when new guideline of ACC/AHA was used. Of the people who had HTN according to the JNC7 and ACC/AHA 2017 guidelines, 48.2% (95% CI: 44.4-52.0) and 21.0% (95% CI: 18.1-24.2) had a controlled blood pressure level, respectively. When blood pressure was assessed using both guidelines, the greatest absolute increase in rates of HTN and CHTN was 17.4% and 30.0% in people aged 40-59 years, respectively. CONCLUSION: Given the high burden of disease due to complications arising from untreated HTN, as well as the higher costs of untreated disease, new guidelines have important public health implications to early detection of patients at risk and prevent complications across different populations.

Household food insecurity is associated with asthma control in Peruvian children living in a resource-poor setting.

Rationale: Prior evidence suggests that there may be an association between asthma and food insecurity. We sought to describe the prevalence of food insecurity access, defined as having sufficient resources for appropriate foods in Lima, Peru, and evaluate its association with asthma status and control.Methods: We analyzed data from 553 children with asthma and 268 healthy controls aged nine to 19 years living in two peri-urban communities in Lima, Peru, in 2013. We used the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale to assess food insecurity. We defined uncontrolled asthma as an asthma control test score ≤19. We used multivariable logistic regressions to determine the relationship between asthma outcomes and food insecurity adjusting for age, sex, socioeconomic status, body mass index, and setting.Results: Average age was 14.2 years (SD 2.7). There was a high prevalence of household food insecurity in our study: 330 participants (40.2%) were food insecure, and average food insecurity access score was 2.7 points (SD 4.2). While being food insecure was not associated with asthma status (OR = 1.23, 95% CI 0.85 to 1.79; p = 0.28), it was associated with a higher odds of having uncontrolled asthma (OR = 2.01, 95% CI 1.13 to 3.59; p = 0.02). Each one-unit increase in food insecurity score (higher scores indicating more insecurity) was associated with 8% higher odds of having uncontrolled asthma (OR = 1.08, 95% CI 1.02 to 1.14; p < 0.01).Conclusions: Worse asthma control was associated with food insecurity. Future studies are needed to better understand the role of food security in determining the success of treatment strategies.

Disparities in dietary intake and physical activity patterns across the urbanization divide in the Peruvian Andes.

BACKGROUND: Diet and activity are thought to worsen with urbanization, thereby increasing risk of obesity and chronic diseases. A better understanding of dietary and activity patterns across the urbanization divide may help identify pathways, and therefore intervention targets, leading to the epidemic of overweight seen in low- and middle-income populations. Therefore, we sought to characterize diet and activity in a population-based study of urban and rural residents in Puno, Peru. METHODS: We compared diet and activity in 1005 (503 urban, 502 rural) participants via a lifestyle questionnaire. We then recruited an age- and sex-stratified random sample of 50 (25 urban, 25 rural) participants to further characterize diet and activity. Among these participants, diet composition and macronutrient intake was assessed by three non-consecutive 24-h dietary recalls and physical activity was assessed using Omron JH-720itc pedometers. RESULTS: Among 1005 participants, we found that urban residents consumed protein-rich foods, refined grains, sugary items, and fresh produce more frequently than rural residents. Among the 50 subsample participants, urban dwellers consumed more protein (47 vs. 39 g; p = 0.05), more carbohydrates (280 vs. 220 g; p = 0.03), more sugary foods (98 vs. 48 g, p = 0.02) and had greater dietary diversity (6.4 vs 5.8; p = 0.04). Rural subsample participants consumed more added salt (3.1 vs 1.7 g, p = 0.006) and tended to consume more vegetable oil. As estimated by pedometers, urban subsample participants burned fewer calories per day (191 vs 270 kcal, p = 0.03). CONCLUSIONS: Although urbanization is typically thought to increase consumption of fat, sugar and salt, our 24-h recall results were mixed and showed lower levels of obesity in rural Puno were not necessarily indicative of nutritionally-balanced diets. All subsample participants had relatively traditional lifestyles (low fat intake, limited consumption of processed foods and frequent walking) that may play a role in chronic disease outcomes in this region.