The Mediterranean diet as a potential strategy for mitigating the intake and exposure to contaminants resulting from food processing

Dietary intake represents a significant route of exposure to chemical contaminants, including compounds formed during the food processing. The present study estimated the intake and exposure to 11 food contaminants in adults with metabolic syndrome. The changes during a Mediterranean diet (MedDiet) based intervention were also evaluated. The present investigation included 225 participants from one of the Málaga centers of the PREDIMED-Plus trial (2013–2016). The dietary intake was assessed through the implementation of a validated food frequency questionnaire, and adherence to the Mediterranean diet was determined using a screener tool comprising 17 items. Contaminant concentrations were obtained from the CONT11 database and linked to reported food consumption. The findings, based on an average follow-up period of two years, revealed a decline in both weight and body mass index, with a simultaneous increase in adherence to the MedDiet. The intervention arm exhibited a more pronounced enhancement in adherence to MedDiet. The estimated intake and exposure of most contaminants declined, except for nitrates and total polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which increased. Furosine, pyrraline and Amadori compounds were directly associated with body mass index and waist circumference, while MedDiet adherence was inversely associated with estimated exposure to these contaminants. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that a dietary intervention focused on MedDiet may reduce estimated dietary exposure to several contaminants derived from processing, while simultaneously improving anthropometric outcomes. Notwithstanding the necessity for future validation of these estimates against biomarkers, this scalable approach is especially well suited to nutritional epidemiology in large cohorts.