Diet quality in adolescents with premenstrual syndrome: A cross‐sectional study

Abstract

Aim: Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a complex of symptoms that can seriously affect the quality of life in women. It has been suggested that the nutritional status of adult women may influence the presence and/or severity of PMS symptoms. However, little is known about this association in adolescents. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between diet quality and the presence/severity of PMS symptoms in adolescents. Methods: A case-control study of 272 female students, aged 13-18 years, was conducted in a high school. PMS was diagnosed and the symptoms were recorded using Premenstrual Syndrome Scale (PMSS)-2006 in 2 consecutive months. Dietary intake was assessed with 24-hour-dietary intake recall method and Healthy Eating Index-2010 (HEI-2010) score was calculated as an indicator of diet quality. Anthropometric measurements, including body weight, height, waist circumference and hip circumference were taken. Results: PMS was diagnosed in 56.9% of the study sample. The mean HEI-2010 score was significantly lower in the PMS group (47.5 AE 23.95) when compared to the control group (53.5 AE 20.98), P = 0.034. The PMS symptoms, anxiety (P = 0.009), depressive feelings (P = 0.016) and changes in sleeping pattern (P = 0.000) were associated with lower diet quality scores in the PMS group. No significant difference in anthropometric measurements was observed between the groups. Conclusions: The present study suggested that adolescents with a high-quality diet might experience depressive feelings, anxiety or changes in sleeping less when compared to those with a low quality diet. Therefore, the causal relationship between diet quality and presence/severity of PMS should be investigated in further studies.

Premenstrual Syndrome Is Associated with Dietary and Lifestyle Behaviors among University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study from Sharjah, UAE

“…However, no significant associations were found between anthropometric factors and PMS prevalence and symptoms. This finding is in line with the findings of Sadler and colleagues in a cross-sectional study on 974 women in the UK [43] and with the recent finding of Isgin-Atici and colleagues who found no significant differences in anthropometric measurements between PMS cases and their counterpart controls in Turkey [31]. However, this contradicts reports in Pakistani, Korean, Iran, and US adult females, in which high BMI, body fat and visceral fat were risk factors for reporting the prevalence and severity of PMS [55,56,57,58] and menstrual irregularity [59].…”

“…Reducing consumption of high-fat high calorie/fat/sugar/salt foods may be associated with decreased PMS symptoms by converting estrogen into its inactive form. This was confirmed by recent work from Turkey and Iran, where adolescent girls with PMS reported higher intake of high energy and low nutrient-density foods [31,78]. Further, previous studies reported that female participants with PMS consume fast foods rich in sugar and total fat, caffeinated beverages, snacks, red and fatty meats in higher amounts and more frequently, while rarely consuming dairy products [17,22,79].…”

“…A qualitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) for specific food groups/items was also used. The FFQ included foods with plausible effects on PMS as reported by Cheng et al (2013) [22], and other published research [26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39]. These included: starchy foods (e.g., bread, rice, pasta, pastries), milk and dairy products, caffeinated beverages (e.g., coffee, tea, energy drinks), leafy green vegetables (e.g., parsley, coriander, spinach, collard, Swiss chard), cruciferous vegetables (e.g., broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts), other non-starchy vegetables (e.g., tomato, cucumber, bell peppers, green beans), fruit (e.g., bananas, apples, citrus fruit, melons, grapes), animal foods (e.g., red meats, poultry, fish, shrimp), herbal teas (e.g., cinnamon, black and green tea, sage, peppermint, thyme, ginger, chamomile) and high calorie/fat/sugar/salt foods that contribute high calories but have little nutritional value, e.g., high fat, sugar, and/or salt foods, fried foods, high-fat dairy products, eggs, refined grains, potatoes, corn and high-fructose corn syrup, and high-sugar drinks).…”

“…The rate of PMS is known to be high among this group, and adversely affects their quality of life and academic performance [11,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29]. The reported prevalence of PMS among female university students varies between different countries; for example, 33.82% in China [30], 37% in Ethiopia [11], 39.9% in Taiwan [22], 39.4%–56.9% in Iran [26,31], 65% in Egypt [18], 72.1%–91.8% in Turkey [6,21], 79% in Japan [23], 80% in Pakistan [25], 89.5% in South Korea [29], and 80.2%–92.3% in Jordan [27,28]. This geographical variability in the prevalence of PMS may be attributable to differences in genetic, dietary, and lifestyle factors among the young adult females examined.…”

The first 1000 days: A critical period of nutritional opportunity and vulnerability

“…This issue of Nutrition & Dietetics includes a collection of original nutrition research that spans these critical first 1000 days of life and beyond. In addition to papers related to pregnancy, 7‐10 infancy 11‐13 and the preschool years, 14 there are papers related to schoolchildren, 15 adolescents 16 and young adults 17,18 …”