Schlesinger et al., 2019

ABSTRACT

This meta-analysis summarizes the evidence of a prospective association between the intake of foods whole grains, refined grains, vegetables, fruit, nuts, legumes, eggs, dairy, fish, red meat, processed meat, and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and risk of general overweight/obesity, abdominal obesity, and weight gain.

PubMed and Web of Science were searched for prospective observational studies until August 2018. Summary RRs and 95% CIs were estimated from 43 reports for the highest compared with the lowest intake categories, as well as for linear and nonlinear relations focusing on each outcome separately: overweight/obesity, abdominal obesity, and weight gain. The quality of evidence was evaluated with use of the NutriGrade tool.

In the dose-response meta-analysis, inverse associations were found for:

whole-grain (RRoverweight/obesity: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.89, 0.96)
fruit (RRoverweight/obesity: 0.93; 95% CI: 0.86, 1.00; RRweight gain: 0.91; 95% CI: 0.86, 0.97)
nut (RRabdominal obesity: 0.42; 95% CI: 0.31, 0.57)
legume (RRoverweight/obesity: 0.88; 95% CI: 0.84, 0.93)
fish (RRabdominal obesity: 0.83; 95% CI: 0.71, 0.97)

Positive associations were found for:

refined grains (RRoverweight/obesity: 1.05; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.10)
red meat (RRabdominal obesity: 1.10; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.16; RRweight gain: 1.14; 95% CI: 1.03, 1.26)
SSBs (RRoverweight/obesity: 1.05; 95% CI: 1.00, 1.11; RRabdominal obesity: 1.12; 95% CI: 1.04, 1.20).

The dose-response meta-analytical findings provided very low to low quality of evidence that certain food groups have an impact on different measurements of adiposity risk. To improve the quality of evidence, better-designed observational studies, inclusion of intervention trials, and use of novel statistical methods (e.g., substitution analyses or network meta-analyses) are needed.