The potential role of plantains, moringa, plantain-moringa combined diets, and other plant-based dietary patterns in controlling glycaemia among T2DM persons, a hospital based cross sectional survey in Ghana

Be-Ikuu Dominic Doglikuu; Abdulai Abubakari; Mehdi Yaseri; Elham Shakibazadeh; Abolghassem Djazayery; Khadijeh Mirzaei

doi:10.1007/s40200-021-00896-y

The potential role of plantains, moringa, plantain-moringa combined diets, and other plant-based dietary patterns in controlling glycaemia among T2DM persons, a hospital based cross sectional survey in Ghana

J Diabetes Metab Disord. 2021 Sep 13;20(2):1529-1536. doi: 10.1007/s40200-021-00896-y. eCollection 2021 Dec.

Authors

Be-Ikuu Dominic Doglikuu^{1

2}, Abdulai Abubakari³, Mehdi Yaseri⁴, Elham Shakibazadeh⁵, Abolghassem Djazayery⁶, Khadijeh Mirzaei⁶

Affiliations

¹ International Campus, Department of Community Nutrition, School of Nutritional Sciences and Dietetics, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran.
² Ministry of Health, Nursing and Midwifery Training College, TwifoPraso, Central Region Ghana.
³ Department of Global and International Health, School of Public Health, University of Development Studies (UDS), Tamale, Ghana.
⁴ Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁵ Department of Health Education and Promotion, School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁶ Department of Community Nutrition, School of Nutritional Sciences and Dietetics, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is an independent risk-factor for cardiovascular diseases. Plant-based dietary-patterns have been shown to reverse the effects of these cardiovascular risk-factors. Our study therefore aimed to investigate the potential roles moringa, moringa-plantain combined, and other plant based dietary-patterns could play in controlling glycaemia among persons with type-2-diabetes Mellitus (T2DM).

Methods: Facility-based cross-sectional-study was conducted among 530 T2DM patients from August 2018 to September 2019 in Ghana. Structured-questionnaires were used to collect demographic, anthropometric, and clinical variables. Adherence to plant-based dietary-patterns were assessed using 3-day food record. SPSS version-20 was used to analyse the data.

Results: BMI, HbA1c%, HDL-cholesterol and LDL-cholesterol were significantly correlated with adherence to plant-based dietary-patterns (p-value < 0.05). After adjusting for physical activity, adherence to plantain diets Standardized regression coefficient β (95%CI): -0.098 (-0.321, -0.022), yam β (95%CI): 0.148 (0.066, 0.496), moringa diets β (95%CI): -0.095 (-0.325,-0.011) and bean-diets β (95%CI): -0.112 (-0.577, -0.007) were significantly associated with glycemic control. Adherence to plantain-moriga combined diets β (95%CI): -0.406 (-0.413, -0.049) and plantain-beans combined diets β (95%CI): -0.128 (-0.188, -0.038) were also significantly associated with glycemic control.

Conclusion: Adherence to plantain, yam, beans, plantain-moriga combined diets, and plantain-beans combined diets could be associated with glycemic-control. Health care workers should prioritize these plant-based dietary-patterns for disease prevention and health promotion.

Keywords: Adherence; Diabetes mellitus; Ghana; Glycemic control; Moringa; Plantain.