Dietary Determinants of Metabolic Syndrome Parameters Differ by Gender in College Students
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Department of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, Weber State University, Ogden, UT 84408-2801, USA
2
Department of Mathematics, Weber State University, Ogden, UT 84408-2801, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Nutrients 2019, 11(12), 2892; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu11122892
Received: 16 October 2019 / Revised: 24 November 2019 / Accepted: 25 November 2019 / Published: 27 November 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Diet and Metabolic Syndromes)
MyPlate is a guidance system for healthier eating choices. In this cross-sectional study, we investigated the influence of MyPlate food group consumption and exercise on metabolic syndrome (MetS) parameters in college students. Participant (n = 462) blood was analyzed using Cholestech for triglycerides (TG), glucose, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). In addition, weight, waist circumference (WC), and blood pressure (BP) were measured. Diet and Wellness Plus was used to compute participant diet records. Regression analysis and a recursive decision tree were made to predict MetS using RStudio (V.1.1.463). BP decision tree predicted high risk of elevated blood pressure with a recall rate of 93.7%. For males; exercise, empty calories, dairy, and protein were main predictors. For females, vegetable and empty calorie consumption were primary determinants. HDL-C decision tree had a recall rate of 91.8% and showed that the main low HDL-C risk determinants for males were; exercise and grain consumption. Conversely, for females; empty calories, grain, and vegetable consumption were the key factors determining low HDL-C risk. This study shows that MyPlate recommendations are valuable to achieve adequate HDL-C and blood pressure and provides insight into the importance of tailoring food intake guidance based on gender.
Keywords:
decision tree; HDL-C; blood pressure; MyPlate; food groups; MetS
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Saltzgiver, S.; Nielson, A.; Costello, H.; Baker, A.; Chan, J.; Aguilar, D. Dietary Determinants of Metabolic Syndrome Parameters Differ by Gender in College Students. Nutrients 2019, 11, 2892.
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- Supplementary File 1:
ZIP-Document (ZIP, 22 B)
-
Externally hosted supplementary file 1
Doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3491166
Description: The following are available online at www.mdpi.com. Raw participant data: mets2.csv, HDL-C, and BP R-decision tree syntax: Trees.R, male WC, and BP MLR syntax: Regression.R.