Background and aim: Abnormalities in lipid metabolism are commonly observed in patients who were obese. Alongside dyslipidemia, one of the markers in predicting the risk of cardiovascular disease is the Atherogenic Index of Plasma (AIP), which is related to dietary intake. Healthy fat quality indices, including Atherogenicity (AI) and Thrombogenicity (TI) hypo/hypercholesterolemic ratio (h/H), the Cholesterol-Saturated Fat Index (CSI) and ω-3/ω-6 ratio might have an effect on AIP. The purpose of this study is to find the possible relationship between dietary fat quality, and AIP and comparison of these indices among obese and non-obese volunteers.
Methods: This study was a cross-sectional descriptive-analytic case-control study with 157 normal and overweight and obese volunteers (n=71 normal vs n=86 overweight and obese) in the age range of 18-65 years. Food intake, anthropometric indices, body composition, and lipid profile were measured.
Results: Based on the present results, comparable biochemical parameters including TC (P=0.580), TG (P=0.362) and LDL (P=0.687) and HDL (P=0.151) among overweight/obese volunteers as compared to normal ones were noticed. Results of dietary fat quality, including Atherogenicity (AI) and Thrombogenicity (TI) hypo/hypercholesterolemic ratio (h/H), the Cholesterol-Saturated Fat Index (CSI) showed significantly higher AI (P=0.012) in the overweight/obese group as compared to the normal group. Whereas, h/H (P=0.034) and ω-6/ω-3 ratio (P=0.004) were significantly higher in normal weight volunteers. There was a positive correlation between AI, TI, CSI, SFA, MUFA, PUFA and ω-6/ω-3 ratio with AIP and negative correlation between h/H with AIP in both groups. Despite significancies of these corelations no strong relation was observed by doing multiple regression among normal and overweight/obese groups (R2=0.210, R2=0.387).
Conclusions: In summary, the present study suggest a direct relationship between dietary fat quality, increased BMI, and lipid abnormalities with AIP. However, further large-scale studies are needed to have a clear conclusion in this regard.