Nutrient intakes and cholesterol values of the parents in a prospective randomized child-targeted coronary heart disease risk factor intervention trial - the STRIP project

Objective: To analyze food consumption, nutrient intakes and serum choleste rol concentrations of the parents in a child-targeted CHD intervention tria l, during which the age of children increased from 7 months to 5 y. Design and subjects: The children were randomized to an intervention group (n = 540) or a control group (n = 522) at six months of age. The interventi on families were counseled at 3-6 month intervals to reduce their child's i ntake of saturated far and cholesterol. Dietary issues were discussed with the control families only briefly. The parents' food consumption was analyz ed by 24 h dietary recall at the child's age of 7 and 13 months and at 2, 3 , 4, and 5 y. Nutrient intakes were calculated using the Micro-Nutrica prog ram(R) Results: The mothers and fathers of the intervention children used less but ter, more margarine and more skim milk than those of the control children ( P < 0.001 for all measurements). After the onset of counseling, the interve ntion mothers consumed continuously less fat (1.4 E% less at the child's ag e of 5 y), less saturated fat (1.5 E% less at the child's age of 5 y) and m ore polyunsaturated fat (0.5 E% more at the child's age of 5 y) than the co ntrol mothers (P = 0.008, P < 0.001 and P < 0.001 for trend, respectively). After the child's age of 13 months the intervention fathers also had a con tinuously lower fat intake (2.4 E% less at the child's age of 5 y) and cons umed less saturated fat(1.5 E% less at the child's age of 5 y) than the con trol fathers (P < 0.001 for trend for both measurements). The serum cholest erol concentration of the intervention mothers was consistently lower than that of the control mothers during the intervention (at child's age of 5 y 4.86 and 5.09 mmol/L, respectively; P for trend = 0.03), while the values o f the intervention and control fathers showed no differences. Conclusions: Continuous dietary intervention begun in infancy and focused o n modification of the childs diet according to the current principles of pr eventive cardiology, was accompanied by a moderate decrease in the intake o f total and saturated fat in the parents, but serum cholesterol concentrati on diminished consistently only in the mothers of the intervention children .