Dietary Diabetes Risk Reduction Score, Race and Ethnicity, and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women

Objective: To evaluate racial and ethnic differences in the association between a dietary diabetes risk reduction score and incidence of type 2 diabetes in U.S. white and minority women.

Research Design And Methods: We followed 156,030 non-Hispanic white (NHW), 2,026 Asian, 2,053 Hispanic, and 2,307 black women in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) (1980-2008) and NHS II (1991-2009). A time-updated dietary diabetes risk reduction score (range 8-32) was created by adding points corresponding with each quartile of intake of eight dietary factors (1 = highest risk; 4 = lowest risk). A higher score indicates a healthier overall diet.

Results: We documented 10,922 incident type 2 diabetes cases in NHW, 157 in Asian, 193 in Hispanic, and 307 in black women. Multivariable-adjusted pooled hazard ratio across two cohorts for a 10th-90th percentile range difference in dietary diabetes risk reduction score was 0.49 (95% CI 0.46, 0.52) for NHW, 0.53 (0.31, 0.92) for Asian, 0.45 (0.29, 0.70) for Hispanic, 0.68 (0.47, 0.98) for black, and 0.58 (0.46, 0.74) for overall minority women (P for interaction between minority race/ethnicity and dietary score = 0.08). The absolute risk difference (cases per 1,000 person-years) for the same contrast in dietary score was -5.3 (-7.8, -2.7) for NHW, -7.2 (-22.9, 8.4) for Asian, -11.6 (-26.7, 3.5) for Hispanic, -6.8 (-19.5, 5.9) for black, and -8.0 (-15.6, -0.5) for overall minority women (P for interaction = 0.04).

Conclusions: A higher dietary diabetes risk reduction score was inversely associated with risk of type 2 diabetes in all racial and ethnic groups, but the absolute risk difference was greater in minority women.