Publication Information: Högskolan i Skövde, Institutionen för hälsovetenskaper
Högskolan i Skövde, Forskningsmiljön hälsa, hållbarhet och digitalisering
Growth, Exercise, Nutrition and Development (GENUD) Research Group, Faculty of Health Sciences, Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragón (IA2), Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria Aragón (IIS Aragón), Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain
CIBER Fisiopatología de la Obesidad y Nutrición (CIBERobn), Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain
Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland FIMM, HiLIFE, University of Helsinki, Finland
Department Nutrition and Dietetics, Faculty of Health Professions, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland
Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium
Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology – BIPS, Bremen, Germany
School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Institute of Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Department of Pediatrics, Medical School, University of Pécs, Hungary
Epidemiology and Prevention Unit, Fondazione IRCCS-Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milan, Italy
Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Nutrition and Biotechnology (Group of Nutrigenomics, Biomarkers and Risk Evaluation), University of the Balearic Islands, Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Health Research Institute of the Balearic Islands (IdISBa), Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Artificial Intelligence Research Institute of the Balearic Islands (IAIB), Palma de Mallorca, Spain
Institute of Food Sciences, National Research Council, Avellino, Italy
Research and Education Institute of Child Health, Strovolos, Cyprus
Department of Chronic Diseases, National Institute for Health Development, Tallinn, Estonia
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Bremen, Germany
Section of Biostatistics, Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Department of Health Sciences, Public University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain
Abstract: Background and Objectives: To examine whether changes in the Mediterranean Diet (MD) or any of its MD food groups modulate the genetic susceptibility to obesity in European youth, both in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses. Methods: For cross-sectional analysis, 1982 participants at baseline, 1649 in follow-up 1 (FU1) and 1907 in follow-up 2 (FU2), aged 2–16 years of the IDEFICS/I.Family studies were considered. For the longitudinal design, 1254 participants were included. Adherence to MD was assessed using the Mediterranean Diet Score (MDS), and genetic susceptibility to high BMI was assessed with a polygenic risk score (BMI-PRS). Multiple linear regression models were fitted to estimate gene × MD effects on markers of obesity. Results: In cross-sectional analyses, at baseline, higher MDS was associated with higher BMI in children with high genetic susceptibility (β = 0.12; 95% CI = [0.01, 0.24]). However, 6 years later, at FU2, higher MDS was associated with lower BMI (β = −0.19; 95% CI = [−0.38, −0.01]) in children with high genetic susceptibility, showing an attenuating MDS effect. Also in FU2, vegetables and legumes (V&L) showed inverse associations with BMI (β = −0.01; CI = [−0.02, −0.00]) and WC (β = −0.02; CI = [−0.03, −0.00]) regardless of the obesity genetic risk, although the effect sizes were small. In the longitudinal analyses, no MDS-obesity associations or gene × diet interaction effects were observed. Conclusions: In cross-sectional analysis (baseline and FU2), the MD modulated the association between obesity susceptibility and adiposity indicators in European youth, having an exacerbating effect in children measured during infancy years and an attenuating effect in early adolescent years. ; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 © 2025 The Author(s). Pediatric Obesity published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of World Obesity Federation. Correspondence Address: L.A. Moreno; Growth, Exercise, Nutrition and Development (GENUD) Research Group, Faculty of Health Sciences, Instituto Agroalimentario de ...
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