Background/ Objectives: To evaluate the association between the carbohydrate
quality (CQI) and weight change or incident overweight/obesity (BMI≥25 kg/m2) in the
“Seguimiento Universidad de Navarra (SUN)” cohort.
Subjects/ Methods: 8 741 participants initially free of overweight/obesity were
followed‐up for a median of 7.9 years. We evaluated at baseline the CQI following 4
criteria: dietary fibre intake, glycemic index (GI), whole grains/total grains ratio and
solid carbohydrates/total carbohydrates ratio. Subjects were classified into quintiles
according to CQI. Weight was recorded at baseline and updated every 2 years during
follow‐up.
Results: Increasing CQI of diet was not significantly associated with lower weight gain,
although participants in the highest quintile had the lowest average crude weight gain
(+211 g/year). We observed 1 862 incident cases of overweight/obesity during followup.
CQI was significantly associated (p for trend 0.006) with lower risk of
overweight/obesity: adjusted OR for the 4rd and 5th quintiles: 0.81 (95% CI 0.66 to
0.99), and 0.74 (95% CI 0.60 to 0.92), respectively.
Conclusions: In this Mediterranean cohort, CQI showed a significant inverse
association with the incidence of overweight/obesity, which highlights that
carbohydrate intake guidelines related to obesity prevention should be focused in
improving the CQI of the diet