Sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics are associated with antioxidant intake and the consumption of their dietary sources during pregnancy

Abstract

Objective: To analyse the associations of selected sociodemographic and lifestyle factors with the intake of antioxidant nutrients and consumption of their main dietary sources among pregnant women. Design: A population-based cohort study. Dietary intake during pregnancy was assessed by a self-administered FFQ one to three months after the delivery. Setting: Type 1 Diabetes Prediction and Prevention (DIPP) Project. Subjects: Subjects comprised 3730 women (70?1 % of those invited) who entered the DIPP Nutrition Study after delivering a child at increased genetic risk for type 1 diabetes at the university hospitals in Oulu and Tampere, Finland, 1997Finland, -2002. Results: All sociodemographic and lifestyle factors studied showed significant associations with antioxidant intake in multiple regression models adjusting for all other factors. Older and more educated women tended to have higher intake of most antioxidants. Parity was positively associated with retinol intake and inversely with vitamin C intake. Smokers had lower intakes of most antioxidants. Only the partner's education was positively associated with high intake of fruits, whereas own education was positively associated with berry consumption. Vegetable consumption was positively associated with partner's education except for women with academic education, who tended to have high vegetable consumption irrespective of partner's education. Conclusions: Young women, smokers and those with a low education are at risk for low antioxidant intake and non-optimal food choices during pregnancy.

Maternal and paternal self-rated health and BMI in relation to lifestyle in early pregnancy: The Salut Programme in Sweden

“…Consumption of fruits and vegetables have been acknowledged for their protective effect on stroke and coronary heart disease [26], and evidence points towards a possible inverse association between fruit intake and overweight [27]. In our study, a low fruit and vegetable intake during pregnancy was not related to BMI, which is in accordance with previous findings [28,29]. However, in our study only a minority (12% of women and 4% of men) reached the recommended consumption of five fruits and vegetables a day, which might explain the lack of effect.…”

“…However, in our study only a minority (12% of women and 4% of men) reached the recommended consumption of five fruits and vegetables a day, which might explain the lack of effect. Low consumption during pregnancy has previously been shown for young women and smokers [28,29]. The importance of addressing parental behaviours for increasing children's consumption of fruits and vegetables has been stressed by others [30] and is likely true for any health-enhancing strategy aiming to reach children.…”

Intake of antioxidants during pregnancy and the risk of allergies and asthma in the offspring

“…It is possible that the nonsignificant findings we observed with most of the antioxidants may indicate the difficulty of the FFQ to accurately quantify maternal antioxidant intake during pregnancy. However, the validity estimates for the main dietary sources of antioxidants (Uusitalo et al, 2008) were acceptable except for those of dietary oils (Erkkola et al, 2001).…”

“…It has been shown that those belonging to older age groups, having longer education and normal weight before pregnancy may use supplements more frequently (Arkkola et al, 2006). These are the same groups that tend to have higher intake of most antioxidants from dietary sources as well (Uusitalo et al, 2008).…”

Maternal food consumption during pregnancy and risk of advanced β-cell autoimmunity in the offspring

“… † For continuous variables log 2 ‐transformed food consumption (in grams) adjusted for energy intake by residual method (21). For variables with distributions not normalized with logarithmic transformations, quarters of absolute consumption and use–nonuse categorization used as indicated. …”