• Tasnime N Akbaraly, Martin J Shipley, Jane E Ferrie, Marianna Virtanen, Gordon Lowe, Mark Hamer, and Mika Kivimaki.
• Inserm U710, Montpellier, F-34000, France; University Montpellier II, Montpellier, France; EPHE, Paris, France; Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London, London, United Kingdom. Electronic address: tasnime.akbaraly@inserm.fr.
• Am. J. Med. 2015 Feb 1; 128 (2): 152-160.e4.

BackgroundInflammation plays an important role in the cause of cardiovascular diseases and may contribute to the association linking an unhealthy diet to chronic age-related diseases. However, to date the long-term associations between diet and inflammation have been poorly described. Our aim was to assess the extent to which adherence to a healthy diet and dietary improvements over a 6-year exposure period prevented subsequent chronic inflammation over a 5-year follow-up in a large British population of men and women.MethodsData were drawn from 4600 adults (mean ± standard deviation, age 49.6 ± 6.1 years, 28% were women) from the prospective Whitehall cohort II study. Adherence to a healthy diet was measured using Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI) scores in 1991-1993 (50.7 ± 11.9 points) and 1997-1999 (51.6 ± 12.4 points). Chronic inflammation, defined as average levels of serum interleukin-6 from 2 measures 5 years apart, was assessed in 1997-1999 and 2002-2004.ResultsAfter adjustment for sociodemographic factors, health behaviors, and health status, participants who maintained a high AHEI score (ie, a healthy diet, n = 1736, 37.7%) and those who improved this score over time (n = 681, 14.8%) showed significantly lower mean levels of interleukin-6 (1.84 pg/mL, 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.71-1.98 and 1.84 pg/mL, 95% CI, 1.70-1.99, respectively) than those who had a low AHEI score (n = 1594, 34.6%) over the 6-year exposure period (2.01 pg/mL, 95% CI, 1.87-2.17).ConclusionsThese data suggest that maintaining and improving adherence to healthy dietary recommendations may reduce the risk of long-term inflammation.Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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