The Mediterranean diet protects against waist circumference enlargement in 12Ala carriers for the PPARγ gene: 2 years' follow-up of 774 subjects at high cardiovascular risk

The PPAR gamma gene regulates insulin sensitivity and adipogenesis. The Pro12Ala polymorphism of this gene has been related to fat accumulation. Our aim was to analyse the effects of a 2-year nutritional intervention with Mediterranean-style diets on adiposity in high-cardiovascular risk patients depending on the Pro12Ala polymorphism of the PPAR gamma gene. The population consisted of a substudy (774 high-risk subjects aged 55-80 years) of the Prevencion con Dicta Mediterranea (PREDIMED) randomised trial aimed at assessing the effect of the Mediterranean diet for CVD prevention. There were three nutritional intervention groups: two of them of a Mediterranean-style diet and the third was a control group advised to follow a conventional low-fat diet. All the participants were genotyped by PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). The results showed that carriers of the 12Ala allele allocated to the control group had a statistically significant higher change in waist circumference (adjusted difference coefficient = 2.37 cm; P=0.014) compared with wild-type subjects after 2 years of nutritional intervention. This adverse effect was not observed among 12Ala carriers allocated to both Mediterranean diet groups. In diabetic patients a statistically significant interaction between Mediterranean diet and the 12Ala allele regarding waist circumference change was observed (-5.85cm; P=0.003). In conclusion, the Mediterranean diet seems to be able to reduce waist circumference in a high-cardiovascular risk population, reversing the negative effect that the 12Ala allele carriers of the PPAR gamma gene appeared to have. The beneficial effect of this dietary pattern seems to be higher among type 2 diabetic subjects.