Associations between intakes of food groups recommended by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans and iron status in subsets of the US population: a cross-sectional study

Description

To determine how food groups recommended in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans relate to dietary iron intake and iron status in subsets of the US population, multivariate regressions were used to examine associations between Healthy Eating Index (HEI) total and component scores with dietary iron intake and iron status indicators [body iron, ferritin, soluble transferrin receptor, serum iron, transferrin saturation, hemoglobin, hematocrit) in males (12+ y, n=2420), females of reproductive age (12-49 y, n=9757), young children (2-5 y, n=4058), and toddlers (12-23 mo, n=1132) from NHANES 2003-18. Differences in body iron by quintiles of HEI total and composite scores were assessed with least-squared mean regressions. Covariate adjustments included age, ethnicity, body-mass-index, poverty-income-ratio, smoking, and supplemental iron intake. To explore specific foods contributing to associations, the top 3 foods consumed for each HEI component were identified in each analysis subset.

Institutions

• Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education

  TN, Oak Ridge
• Pennington Biomedical Research Center

  LA, Baton Rouge
• US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine

  MA, Natick

Categories

Funders

• United States Army Medical Research and Development Command

  Maryland, United States
• Defense Health Agency

  Virginia, United States

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