Association between preconception dietary inflammatory index and neurodevelopment of offspring at 3 years of age: The Japan Environment and Children's Study.

OBJECTIVES: We investigated the relationship between the daily dietary inflammatory index (DII) score 1 y before pregnancy and offspring neurodevelopment. METHODS: Data of singleton pregnancies from the Japan Environment and Children's Study involving live-term births from 2011 to 2014 were extracted. Individual meal patterns during 1 y before pregnancy obtained from food frequency questionnaires were used to calculate DII scores. Participants were stratified by DII quintiles (quantile [Q] 1 and Q5 represented the most anti- and proinflammatory dietary groups, respectively) and by sex of the newborn. Q3 (middle inflammatory diet group) was the reference for the multiple logistic regression model used to estimate the effect of anti- or proinflammatory diet on impaired neurodevelopment at age 3 y. RESULTS: During this study, 68 479 maternal and neonatal pair records were obtained (34 817 male and 33 662 female offspring). Male offspring in the Q1 group exhibited decreased delayed development in communication (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]: 0.79; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.67-0.93), fine motor (aOR: 0.86; 95% CI, 0.76-0.98), problem-solving (aOR: 0.83; 95% CI, 0.73-0.94), and social (aOR: 0.75; 95% CI, 0.63-0.90) skills. Offspring in the Q5 group exhibited increased delay in fine motor skill development (aOR: 1.23; 95% CI, 1.10-1.39). Female offspring in the Q1 group exhibited decreased delayed development in problem-solving skills (aOR: 0.81; 95% CI, 0.67-0.98), and those in the Q5 group exhibited an increased delay in gross motor skill development (aOR: 1.24; 95% CI, 1.01-1.53). CONCLUSIONS: An antiinflammatory diet 1 y before pregnancy may decrease the risk of impaired neonatal neurodevelopment, and a proinflammatory diet may increase this risk.