JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, Hue University, N 0 61, 2010 EATING PATTERNS AND NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF TYPE 2 DIABETIC PATIENTS WITH GLYCEMIC CONTROL IN NONGBUALUMPHU HOSPITAL, THAILAND Muktabhant
Trang 1JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, Hue University, N 0 61, 2010
EATING PATTERNS AND NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF TYPE 2 DIABETIC PATIENTS WITH GLYCEMIC CONTROL IN NONGBUALUMPHU
HOSPITAL, THAILAND
Muktabhant B Faculty of Public Health, Khon Kaen University
Thonguthaisiri A Nongbualumphu Hospital Thailand
SUMMARY
Introduction: Diabetic patients are requested to control their dietary intake in order to
keep their blood glucose levels at an acceptable level This study aimed to determine eating patterns and the nutritional status of inhabitants of Northeastern Thailand suffering from type 2 diabetes with good glycemic control (GC) compared with those with poor glycemic control (PC)
Methodology: During 2007, we performed a cross-sectional study of 284 type 2 diabetic
patients who attended diabetic outpatient clinics at Nongbualumphu Hospital, Thailand 142 patients were in each group, GC (HbA 1c of <7%) and PC (HbA 1c of ≥7%), Face to face interviews were based on a questionnaire that included eating habits, and food frequency information Body mass index (BMI) was used to indicate the nutritional status of the diabetic patients Chi-square tests were used to analyse and compare eating patterns, and nutritional
status between two groups Results: Most of the patients (>90%) in both the GC and PC groups
ate three meals a day About 70% of GC patients, while 53% of PC patients had breakfast and dinner punctually (p<0.05) There were a higher proportion of GC patients who restricted the amount of food consumed than PC patients (p<0.05) Moreover the GC patients ate stir-fried dishes, sweet fruits and Thai fast food less frequently than the PC patients did (p<0.05) Fifty-five percents of the subjects in both groups were obese This difference was not statistically
significant Conclusions: Better dietary control of diabetic patients should be encouraged to
improve their glycemic control and reduce long term complications
Key words: Eating pattern, Diabetes mellitus, Glycemic control, Nutritional status
1 Introduction
The ultimate goal of management of type 2 diabetes patients is to prevent complications Good glycemic control can prevent retinopathy, kidney failure; and cardio-vascular events, as well as other complications Current guidelines set a hemoglobin A1C level less than 7.0% as the goal of treatment A dietary strategy is
Trang 2recognized as a key component in prevention and management of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) The diabetic patients are therefore requested to control their dietary in order to keep their blood glucose levels at an acceptable level However, only 30% of the T2DM patients in Thailand are good control of their glycemic levels This study aimed to determine eating patterns and the nutritional status of inhabitants of Northeastern Thailand suffering from type 2 diabetes Two groups had been compared namely individuals with a good- (GC), and those with poor control of their blood glucose levels (PC)
2 Methodology
During 2007, a cross-sectional study was conducted with 284 diabetic patients,
of 142 with good glycemic control and 142 with poor glycemic control All patients did attend the diabetic outpatient clinics at the Nongbualumphu Hospital, within the province of the same name in Thailand Good glycemic control was defined as HbA1c of
<7%, and HbA1c >7% was considered as an indication of a poor glycemic control Face
to face interviews were based on a questionnaire that included eating habits, and food frequency information The weight and height of the patients was measured, and the body mass index (BMI) was calculated For classifying the nutritional status, the Asian criteria was applied in defining a BMI of 18.5 to 22.9 kg/m2 as normal, a BMI of 23.0
to 24.9 kg/m2 as overweight and a BMI>25 kg/m2 as obese The chi-square test was used to test whether there was a statistically significant difference between the GC and the PC group or not
3 Results
3.1 Demographics
Seventy four percent of individuals in both the GC- and the PC group were female The average age of the patients was 59.7 for the GC and 55.3 years for the PC patients Most of the study participants finished primary school About half of them had
no stable occupation (Table 1)
Table 1 Characteristics of the subjects
Sex: Male Female
26.1 73.9
26.1 73.9 Age: <40
40-59
≥60
4.3 40.9 54.9
4.3 63.4 32.4
Trang 3X ± SD 59.7 ±10.7 55.3 ± 8.8 Educational level:
No school Primary school
Secondary school
Higher than Secondary school
4.9 90.2 3.5 1.4
7.0 81.0 9.9 2.1 Occupation:
No occupation
Farmers Merchants Laborers Officers
54.2 27.5 6.3 10.6 1.4
48.6 32.4 7.8 5.6 5.6
3.2 Eating habits
Most of the study participants (>90%) in both groups ate 3 meals a day Punctuality of meal time was less consistent, with a little less than 70% of the GC group being punctual for breakfast and dinner and only half reported being punctual for lunch While just 52% of the PC group reported punctuality for breakfast and dinner and only 44% of them for lunch The proportion of individuals of the GC group controlling the amount of food consumed was better than the PC group including rice, sweet fruits, desserts and sweet drinks as well.(Table 2)
Table 2 Eating habits of the GC and PC patients
Punctuality of meal time
Trang 4Controlling the amount of food intake
Controlling the amount of sweet fruits
Controlling the consumption of sweet drinks 66.2 49.3 0.001
* p-value by χ2 test
Frequency of Food Intake
The GC patients ate stir-fried dishes, sweet fruits and Thai fast food (ready to eat dish such as Pad Thai, Kaw Pad) less frequently than the PC patients (p<0.05) The percentage of the GC and PC groups were similar in the frequency of intake of sweet drink, bakery, dessert, high cholesterol food and fatty meat and also vegetable (Figure 1)
Fatty meat High cholesterol food
Bakery Dessert Soft drink Sweet drink
Fried food Stir food Thai fast food
Vegetable Sweet fruit
% of the subjects
PC
GC
Figure 1 Percentage of the GC- and PC group by frequency of food intake at least 1 time/week
*
*
*
* Significant difference between GC and PC group by
χ 2 test at p-value <0.05
Trang 53.3 Nutritional status
In terms of BMI, the nutritional status of both the GC and the PC group were similar Twenty-one subjects of each group- the GC- and the PC group were overweight (BMI 23– 24.9 kg/m2) and 55 % of participants in each group were obese (BMI 25 kg/m2) (Figure 2)
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
%
unde
rwei
ght
norm al
over
weig
ht
obes e
GC PC
Figure 2 Nutritional status of the GC and PC patients by BMI classification
4 Discussion
The diabetic patients with good glycemic control were more aware about their disease than the ones with poor control The results show that good glycemic control patients reported better dietary habits than the people in the poor glycemic control group, including punctuality of meal time, control of the amount of foods eaten which have a high glycemic index (GI) food such as sweet fruits, sweet drink and desserts High glycemic index foods generally make blood sugar levels higher Not surprisingly, therefore, the patients who do not limit the intake of foods with a high glycemic index are more likely to retain high blood glucose level than those that do Some studies have shown improvementsin glucose control following a low GI diet as compared to ahigh
GI diet For the nutritional status, about half of the patients in both groups were obese A study in Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes revealed that glycemic control was poorly correlated with BMI Although the nutritional status of both groups investigated here was not different, eating habits between both groups differed to a great extent, as mentioned before Since blood glucose levels are also dependent on the total caloric intake, the individuals with a food intake adjusted to their disease and those who obviously did not care about blood glucose levels while eating also display a difference
in the total caloric intake This reflected by a difference in the nutritional status between groups Why the results of the study did not show this requires further investigations In this study food intake could only be estimated qualitatively Another explanation might
Trang 6be that total caloric intake does not make a difference between good and a poor control
of bloods glucose levels for the patients, but instead sweet fruits, stir fried food, and Thai fast food which contain a high amount of glucose and fat
5 Conclusion
The importance of an adequate dietary intake is not entirely recognized by the diabetic patients of the Nongbualumphu Hospital A better understanding about the relationship of certain food items to blood glucose levels seems to be necessary More investigations would also be helpful in differentiating between various frequently consumed fruits which increase or do not increase blood glucose levels to a great extent
Acknowledgments
We thank Prof.(emeritus) Frank P Schelp for his kindness in English editing for this paper
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