Projections of disability-adjusted life years for major diseases due to a change in vegetable intake in 2017–2040 in Japan

Abstract

Background Low vegetable intake is one of the key dietary risk factors known to be associated with a range of health problems, including cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), cancer, and diabetes and kidney diseases (DKDs). Using data from Japan’s National Health and Nutrition Surveys and the Global Burden of Diseases study in 2017, this study aimed to forecast the impact of change in vegetable intake on disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) between 2017 and 2040 for three diseases. Methods We generated a three-component model of cause-specific DALYs, including changes in major behavioural and metabolic risk predictors, the socio-demographic index and an autoregressive integrated moving average model to project future DALY rates for 2017–2040 using the data between 1990 and 2016. Data on Vegetable consumption and risk predictors, and DALY rate were obtained from Japan’s National Health and Nutrition Surveys and the Global Burden of Diseases Study in 2017. We also modelled three scenarios of better, moderate and worse cases to evaluate the impact of change in vegetable consumption on the DALY rates for three diseases (CVDs, cancer, and DKDs). Results Projected mean vegetable intake in the total population showed a decreasing trend through 2040 to 237.7 g/day. A significant difference between the reference scenario and the better case scenario was observed with un-overlapped 95% prediction intervals of DALY rates in females aged 20–49 years (− 8.0%) for CVDs, the total population for cancer (− 5.6%), and in males (− 8.2%) and females (− 13.7%) for DKDs. Conclusions Our analysis indicates that increased vegetable consumption would have a significant reduction in the burdens of CVDs, cancer and DKDs in Japan. By estimating the disease burden attributable to low vegetable intake under different scenarios of future vegetable consumption, our study can inform the design of targeted interventions for public health challenges.

Level of Fruit and Vegetable Intake and Its Relationship with Risk for Malnutrition in China’s Adult Labor Force: China Nutrition and Health Surveillance, 2015–2017

“…Especially in rural areas, the decline was 37.9% and 28.1%, compared to 322 g/d in 1982 and 256.1 g/d in 2012, respectively [ 33 ]. Moreover, in Asia, where the diet is mainly plant-based, this level is higher than in most Asian countries, but lower than in Korea, Lao PDR, Japan, and Timor-Leste [ 32 , 34 ]. Combined with the geographical distribution, people in the southern region eat more fresh vegetables than those in the northern region, and the intake of fruit was higher among residents of the northern region, 1.7 times higher than those in the southern region, similar to other studies in China [ 35 ].…”

Habitual fish consumption and healthy lifestyle behaviours may be associated with higher total serum bilirubin level and anti-inflammatory activity: a cross-sectional study

“…The data were obtained from a survey conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan (online Supplementary Table 2) (31,32) . Thus, the National Nutrition Survey, led by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan, has a standardised data collection method and established quality controls (33)(34)(35) . Based on this survey record, we calculated the estimated average weekly amount of fish consumption as follows:…”

Toward a third term of Health Japan 21 – implications from the rise in non-communicable disease burden and highly preventable risk factors

“…Several previous studies have forecasted future changes in health loss in DALYs in Japan to which dietary risk factors contribute, including high salt intake, under various future intake scenarios. 48 , 49 , 50 Significant gaps in the estimates of future health loss between scenarios were identified, indicating that future policies targeting risk factors in a population may have a significant impact on future trajectories of risk factor profiles in Japan and associated health losses.…”