Sub-patterns of food consumption and hyperglycemia in Mexican young people: a study by factor analysis

BACKGROUND The student population that is admitted to the University Juarez of Tabasco has poor healthy eating habits. Fasting glucose ≥5.6 mmol/L was found in 10% of the students. OBJECTIVE We wanted to identify the sub-pattern of their eating habits that could explain the hyperglycemia. DESIGN A questionnaire on the feeding habits was applied to 3,559 first-year students, who were subjected to a blood analysis to determine biochemical markers in 2011. Based on the obtained questionnaire data, the factorial analysis was used for the statistical analysis. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure for sampling adequacy was used for validation. To determine eating habits, Varimax normalization with Kaiser was used. RESULTS The number of students with euglycemia was 3,138, including 366 with values for prediabetes, and 55 with values for diabetes. After normalization using Varimax rotation with Kaiser, component 1 of participants with euglycemia included eight foods. The number of foods in component 1 of those participants with prediabetes was seven, and it diminished to four in those with fasting glucose >7 mmol/L. CONCLUSIONS It was found that glucose levels increase in direct relation to the diminution in the number of selected foods.