ABSTRACT
PURPOSE: To examine the associations between dietary intake as assessed by a rapid, image-based digital tool and biomarkers of cardiometabolic health. DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of adults with blood biomarkers performed by Boston Heart Diagnostics (BHD) between December 2020 and March 2022. SETTING: Outpatient centers serviced by BHD. SUBJECTS: 546 adults, excluding those taking relevant medications and/or supplements known to affect blood test results. MEASURES: Laboratory assays of blood specimens were performed by Boston Heart Diagnostics. Nutrient intake and diet quality data were obtained using Diet Quality Photo Navigation (DQPN®; US Patent #11,328,810 B2) technique via Diet ID™ tool. ANALYSIS: Pearson correlation coefficients (for continuous variables) and Spearman coefficients (for ordinal variables) were used to evaluate associations between nutrient intake data and laboratory data for the full study sample. Two-sided P-values < .05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS: Both continuous and ordinal measures of diet quality correlated significantly with HDL-C and triglycerides (n = 485; P < .0 01); with hs-CRP (n = 441; P < .001); with HgbA1c (n = 345; P < .01); with fasting insulin (n = 372; P < .001); and with HOMA-IR (n = 319; P < .001). CONCLUSION: Findings affirm that rapid, digital diet quality and composition assessment by pattern recognition rather than recall tracks significantly with key biomarkers of cardiometabolic health.
