Background
The Overall Nutritional Quality Index (ONQI) algorithm is a nutrient profiling scheme
that incorporates more than 30 dietary components, and it aims to rank foods by relative
healthfulness.
Purpose
To assess whether diets with a higher ONQI score predict lower risk of major chronic
disease risk.
Methods
A total of 62,284 healthy women from the Nurses' Health Study and 42,382 healthy men
from Health Professionals Follow-Up Study were followed from 1986 to 2006. Dietary
data were collected from questionnaires at baseline. Each food was scored by the ONQI
algorithm and the average ONQI score for the diet consumed by each participant was
computed. Total chronic disease was defined as cardiovascular disease (CVD); cancer;
diabetes; and nontrauma death. Data analysis was conducted in 2010.
Results
A total of 20,004 and 13,520 chronic disease events were documented in women and men,
respectively. The ONQI score was inversely associated with risk of total chronic disease,
CVD, diabetes, and all-cause mortality (p-trend≤0.01), but not cancer, in both cohorts. Women in the highest compared to lowest
quintile of the ONQI score had a relative risk (95% CI) of 0.91 (0.87, 0.95) for chronic
disease; 0.79 (0.71, 0.88) for CVD; 0.86 (0.78, 0.96) for diabetes; and 0.90 (0.84,
0.97) for all-cause mortality. Men in the highest compared to lowest quintile of the
ONQI score had a relative risk of 0.88 (0.83, 0.93) for chronic disease; 0.77 (0.70,
0.85) for CVD; 0.84 (0.73, 0.96) for diabetes; and 0.89 (0.83, 0.97) for all-cause
mortality.
Conclusions
Consumption of foods that lead to a higher score for the ONQI scoring system is associated
with modestly lower risk of chronic disease and all-cause mortality.
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© 2011 American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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- The ONQI Is Not a Black BoxAmerican Journal of Preventive MedicineVol. 41Issue 3
