The Mediterranean diet may act as a protective factor against the genetic risk of obesity in European preadolescents

The Mediterranean diet may mitigate the genetic risk of obesity in preadolescents. This is the conclusion of an international study led by researchers from the GENUD group (IIS Aragón/University of Zaragoza) , recently published in the journal Pediatric Obesity . The study analyzes the interaction between adherence to the Mediterranean diet and the genetic predisposition to obesity, and how this relationship affects adiposity markers such as body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) throughout growth.

The research, titled "Mediterranean diet and obesity polygenic risk interaction on adiposity in European children: The IDEFICS/I.Family Study" , was led by researchers Miguel Seral-Cortés and Luis A. Moreno, together with a large European consortium. It is part of the European IDEFICS/I.Family project, funded by the European Union's Framework Programmes VI and VII and focused on the study of determinants of child health in eight European countries.

The study included nearly 2,000 participants aged 2 to 16 years, followed at three different time points (2007, 2009, and 2013), with a total of 5,538 repeated measures and 1,254 adolescents assessed longitudinally . Their dietary habits were assessed using validated questionnaires, and a Mediterranean diet adherence index (MDS) was calculated, as well as a genetic risk score for obesity based on millions of genetic variants across the entire genome.

Among the main results of this study, the analysis revealed that in children with a high genetic predisposition, greater adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated with a lower BMI during early adolescence (around age 12). However, in childhood (around age 6), high adherence to the Mediterranean diet was associated with a slightly higher BMI, which could be due to different biological mechanisms specific to each developmental stage.

Furthermore, this study has shown that vegetable and legume consumption is inversely associated with adiposity markers, regardless of genetic risk, reinforcing the recommendation to promote their consumption in childhood . Furthermore, longitudinal analyses found no significant effects of changing the Mediterranean diet on adiposity markers, suggesting that maintaining a healthy diet continuously from an early age may be more effective than making one-off changes .

These results support the importance of promoting healthy eating patterns such as the Mediterranean diet from childhood to counteract the genetic predisposition to obesity. "Our findings reinforce the role of diet as a modulating factor in genetic risk and offer key information for the design of personalized strategies to prevent childhood obesity," highlighted Miguel Seral-Cortés, lead author of the study.

The full article can be found in the journal Pediatric Obesity :
https://doi.org/10.1111/ijpo.70023

Aragon Health Research Institute (IIS Aragon)

The IIS Aragón is the Health Research Institute formed by the Lozano Blesa and Miguel Servet University Hospitals, Primary Health Care, the University of Zaragoza, and the Aragonese Institute of Health Sciences. The objectives of the IIS Aragón are to bring together basic and applied, clinical and health services research; to create a high-quality research, healthcare, and teaching environment that integrates healthcare professionals, training specialists, and postgraduate and undergraduate students; and to constitute the ideal location for attracting talent and the location of major scientific and technological facilities.