GI, Fiber, Whole-Grain Intake Not Associated With BMI

According to a recent study, dietary glycemic index (GI), glycemic load (GL), and fiber and whole-grain intakes in healthy, free-living adolescents were not relevant to the development of percentage of body fat or body mass index (BMI) during puberty (Am. J. Epidemiol. 2009 169:678-682) (DOI:10.1093/aje/kwn388). Linear mixed-effects regression analyses were performed in 215 participants from the Dortmund Nutritional and Anthropometric Longitudinally Designed (DONALD) Study who possessed weighed three-day dietary records and anthropometric data at puberty onset and over the subsequent four years (1988 to 2007). Neither changes in dietary GI, GL, fiber intake nor whole-grain intake were associated with concurrent changes in percentage of body fat throughout puberty per standard deviation (SD) increase in GI (P=0.8); –0.01 per SD increase in GL (P=0.9); 0.02 per SD increase in fiber intake (P=0.9); and 0.09 per SD increase in whole-grain intake (P=0.5). No concurrent associations were observed between these dietary factors and BMI SD scores. Associations of dietary GI with percentage of body fat and BMI SD score differed between overweight and normal-weight adolescents.