Dietary inflammatory potential, cardiometabolic risk and inflammation in children and adolescents: a systematic review

The aim of this 2021 review was to find out the effect of pro-inflammatory diets on health among children and adolescents. The Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) is a tool for quantifying the dietary inflammatory potential of an individual’s diet. This review explored the available literature on the link between DII or children’s DII (C-DII) with cardiometabolic risk and inflammatory biomarkers in children and adolescents. After searching for relevant papers on various databases, the reviewers identified 6 observational studies that met the inclusion criteria. Three of them were cross-sectional studies, while the other three were longitudinal studies. All six articles analyzed children and adolescents between 3 and 18 years of age. Moreover, all six articles agreed that DII or C-DII was positively associated with cardiometabolic markers such as adiposity (BMI, waist and hip circumference, waist-to-height ratio, and fat mass index). According to the six studies, increases in DII or C-DII also correlated with higher levels of inflammatory biomarkers such as interleukins and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. To conclude, the current evidence indicates that a proinflammatory diet is related to a higher risk of cardiometabolic and inflammatory changes during childhood. The results support the need for strategies to promote healthy, anti-inflammatory diets in children and adolescents to prevent chronic illnesses. [NPID: children, adolescents, inflammation, inflammatory index, pro-inflammatory diet, review]

Year: 2021

Reference: Suhett, L. G., Hermsdorff, H., Cota, B. C., Ribeiro, S., Shivappa, N., Hébert, J. R., Franceschini, S., & de Novaes, J. F. (2021). Dietary inflammatory potential, cardiometabolic risk and inflammation in children and adolescents: a systematic review. Critical reviews in food science and nutrition, 61(3), 407–416.

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