Endocrine Abstracts

Background: The Mediterranean diet (MD) is the traditional diet of the people living in the Mediterranean basin and has been linked with positive health outcomes e.g. reduced incidence of cardiovascular and neoplastic disease. No study has investigated the relationship between the MD and glycaemic control in a Mediterranean population with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM). Furthermore, it is unknown how well controlled are such patients and whether they follow the MD.

Methods: Patients known with T1DM were randomly conducted through the registry of the Cyprus Diabetes Association. Ethics: Received from the University of Stirling and the Cyprus National Bioethics Committee.

Results: Twenty patients were conducted; eight patients fulfilled the inclusion criteria and completed antropometrics and the questionnaires; six had biochemistry. Age was 34.6±10.7 years. All patients were classified as having moderate adherence to the MD using the MedDietScore scoring system (28.9±5.2; max score 55). Lowest score was seen for potatoes and non-refined cereals (1.4±0.7 and 1.4±0.9; max score 5) and the highest for use of vegetables and olive oil in cooking (4.1±1.5 and 4.8±0.7; max score 5). All six patients with biochemical testing had undetectable levels of fasting blood c-peptide. HbA1c was 63.5±5.8 mmol/mol and fasting glucose levels 227.7±64.8 mg/dl; none had optimal diabetes control i.e. HbA1c≤53 mmol/mol. MD score was unrelated to HbA1c (ρ=−0.65; P=0.16) or fasting glucose (ρ=−0.66; P=0.15). Mean BMI was 27.0±5.5; 67% were overweight or obese; BMI was marginally related to HbA1c (ρ=0.8117; P=0.0499).

Discussion: Our results show a no association between the MD and glycaemic control although a type 2 statistical error is plausible. Adherence to the MD diet was moderate in-line with our previous research that showed a moderate and reducing adherence in the general population in Cyprus. Furthermore, our results are worrying regarding glycaemic control. A larger study is underway to further investigate these relationships.