Abstract
Cardiovascular diseases, first cause of morbility and mortality in developed countries, are influenced by nutritional habits. The aim of our study, DORICA, is to identify the most frequent dietary patterns in the Occidentalized societies that contribute to the cardiovascular risk and to establish how they influence in the health of the population. For that purpose we made a transversal study taking aleatory samples from different Spanish regions from 1990 until 2000. We identified three patterns: high-protein one, Mediterranean diet and unbalanced diet. The first one is the most prevalent among men, active smokers and young individuals and is associated with obesity and hypercholesterolemia. People that followed the unbalanced diet had a mean of two cardiovascular risk factors. Most of the individuals from the Mediterranean pattern had a high cultural and socioeconomic level, low index of cholesterol and practiced more physical activity but this group had the highest proportion of members suffering from hypertension.
Keywords: Cardiovascular risk, dietary patterns, Mediterranean diet, high-protein pattern, unbalanced pattern, morbility, mortality, nutritional habits, Occidentalized societies, aleatory samples, Spanish regions
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