Nutritional intake of micronutrient and macronutrient and type 2 diabetes: machine learning schemes

J Health Popul Nutr. 2025 Feb 7;44(1):31. doi: 10.1186/s41043-024-00712-2.

Abstract

Background: Diabetes mellitus, an endocrine system disease, is a common disease involving many patients worldwide. Many studies are performed to evaluate the correlation between micronutrients/macronutrients on diabetes but few of them have a high statistical population and a long follow-up period. We aimed to investigate the relationship between intake of macro/micronutrients and the incidence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) using logistic regression (LR) and a decision tree (DT) algorithm for machine learning.

Method: Our research explores supervised machine learning models to identify T2D patients using the Mashhad Cohort Study dataset. The study population comprised 9704 individuals aged 35-65 years were enrolled regarding their T2D status, and those with T2D history. 15% of individuals are diabetic and 85% of them are non-diabetic. For ten years (until 2020), the participants in the study were monitored to determine the incidence of T2D. LR is a statistical model applied in dichotomous response variable modeling. All data were analyzed by SPSS (Version 22) and SAS JMP software.

Result: Nutritional intake in the T2D group showed that potassium, calcium, magnesium, zinc, iodine, carotene, vitamin D, tryptophan, and vitamin B12 had an inverse correlation with the incidence of diabetes (p < 0.05). While phosphate, iron, and chloride had a positive relationship with the risk of T2D (p < 0.05). Also, the T2D group significantly had higher carbohydrate and protein intake (p-value < 0.05).

Conclusion: Machine learning models can identify T2D risk using questionnaires and blood samples. These have implications for electronic health records that can be explored further.

Keywords: Data mining; Decision tree; Diabetes; Macro/Micronutrients.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Aged
  • Cohort Studies
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2* / epidemiology
  • Diet* / statistics & numerical data
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Incidence
  • Iran / epidemiology
  • Logistic Models
  • Machine Learning*
  • Male
  • Micronutrients* / administration & dosage
  • Middle Aged
  • Nutrients* / administration & dosage

Substances

  • Micronutrients