Diet Quality Mediates the Relationship Between Chronic Stress and Inflammation in Patients With Metabolic Syndrome.
JungHee Kang, Debra K Moser, Terry A Lennie and 3 others
PMID 38192030WHAT IT FOUND
In metabolic syndrome, higher chronic stress was linked to worse diet quality and, through diet quality, to higher inflammation.
Stress itself was not linked to inflammation once diet quality was considered.
Key findings
01Patients in the higher stress group had worse overall diet quality than patients in the lower stress group.
02Higher stress was indirectly associated with higher inflammation through overall diet quality, with 23.5% higher plasma hs-CRP relative to lower stress.
03When overall diet quality was held constant, chronic stress had no significant direct association with inflammation.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study measured stress, diet and inflammation at one time, so it cannot show that stress causes poor diet or that poor diet causes inflammation. The groups were not balanced: the higher stress group was much larger than the lower stress group, and the groups differed in age, sex, education and smoking. The stress cut-point was chosen for this study rather than being a standard clinical threshold. Most participants were female and White, so the findings may not apply to all patients with metabolic syndrome.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflict of interest. The supplied text does not state who funded the work.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that reducing stress or improving diet will lower inflammation. This was a cross-sectional study, not a treatment trial, and the direct association between stress and inflammation was not significant.