Comparing Dietary Intake and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in Vancouver’s South Asian Community
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: Compared to omnivorous diets, vegetarian diets are generally linked to improved body weight, blood pressure, lipid profiles, and glycemic control. Despite having the highest global prevalence of vegetarianism, South Asians in Canada exhibit disproportionately high rates of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and diabetes. This study examines the usual dietary intake and CVD risk factors among South Asian vegetarians and omnivores at risk of diabetes in British Columbia, Canada. Methods: Of a community sample of 100 South Asian adults at high risk of diabetes and recruited from 12 faith-based centers across the Metro Vancouver area, 96 completed the culturally adapted 163-item SHARE Food Frequency Questionnaire to determine their dietary status. CVD risk factors such as body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) were also assessed. The usual dietary intake metrics, including the total energy, macronutrient, and micronutrient consumption, were compared between vegetarians and omnivores. The associations between diet type, BMI, and WC were analyzed. Results: Of the 96 participants, 50 identified as vegetarians and 46 as omnivores. The mean age was similar between groups: 64.9 (±9.0) years for vegetarians and 65.6 (±10.5) years for omnivores. Females comprised a higher proportion of vegetarians (54.0% vs. 34.8%). Vegetarians reported a greater intake of carbohydrates and foods with a higher glycemic index and glycemic load. The fat intake was comparable between groups. Omnivores had a significantly higher intake of niacin, vitamin B-12, potassium, and zinc. Both groups exceeded the recommended sodium intake. Overall, 90.6% of the participants were classified as overweight or obese, with no significant association between vegetarianism and reduced adiposity. Conclusions: Both dietary groups exhibited an increased prevalence of overweight and obesity and had nutritional profiles that may be associated with elevated cardiometabolic risk. Factors such as dietary acculturation and a suboptimal diet quality may underlie these findings. Culturally tailored nutritional interventions are warranted to address the specific needs of South Asian Canadian communities.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".