Association of dietary inflammatory potential (DIP) and endothelial function biomarkers among females

Purpose Dietary inflammatory potential (DIP) is a novel dietary index designed to evaluate individuals’ diets with considering inflammation and anti-inflammation score. In addition, adhesion molecules including soluble intracellular adhesion molecules-1 (sICAM-1), soluble cellular adhesion molecules-1 (sVCAM-1) and E-selectin are important biomarkers to assess endothelium dysfunction which are related to atherosclerosis and cardiovascular complications. Also, there is no study for assessing the association between adhesion molecules and DIP until now as well as other studies that assessed the relationship between dietary inflammatory index or DIP has controversy. The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to determine the correlation between DIP and endothelial markers such as E-selectin, sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1 among female nurses from Isfahan. In this study, DIP was used instead of DII. Design/methodology/approach This study was performed on 420 healthy nurses. The nurses were selected by random cluster sampling method from private and public Isfahan hospitals. A validated food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was applied to assess the DIP. A fasting blood sample was collected for measuring the plasma levels of the endothelial markers and other variables. Findings After adjusting different potential confounders, no statistical association was found between DIP and sICAM-1, E–selectin and sVCAM-1 in Model I (P = 0.57, 0.98 and 0.45), Model II (P = 0.57, 0.98 and 0.45) and Model III (P = 0.67, 0.92 and 0.50) in comparison to the crude group (P = 0.35, 0.83 and 0.49, respectively). Originality/value The results revealed that the plasma levels of endothelial markers including E-selectin, sICAM-1 and sVCAM-1 were not significantly associated with DIP in female nurses.