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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Nutr.

Sec. Nutritional Epidemiology

Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnut.2025.1523171

Gender difference in the association between composite dietary antioxidant index and all-cause mortality

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 Department of Public Health, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Jinggangshan University, Ji'an, China
  • 2 School of Clinical Medicine, Jinggangshan University, Ji'an, Jiangxi Province, China
  • 3 The Personnel Department, Jinggangshan University, Ji'an, China
  • 4 Jiangxi Province Key Laboratory of Organ Development and Epigenetics, Clinical Medical Research Center, Affiliated Hospital of Jinggangshan University, Medical Department of Jinggangshan University, Ji'an, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Background: Existing studies on the association between the composite dietary antioxidant index (CDAI) and all-cause mortality are controversial. We aimed to analyze the association of CDAI with all-cause mortality, and determine the influence of gender on this association.Methods: The data of adult participants (age ≥18) from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) cycles spanning 2001 to 2018 were analyzed. The NHANES-issued identifiers for participants enabled the linkage of data from the NHANES Public Use Linked Mortality File.Results: The study encompassed a sample of 15,651 individuals. The mean CDAI was 0.52 ± 6.06. The restricted cubic spline revealed that the hazard ratio (HR) of all-cause mortality decreased significantly with increasing CDAI. However, this negative association existed only when the CDAI was less than 5. Multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that compared to the first CDAI quartile, the HR of all-cause mortality was significantly decreased in the third and fourth quartiles (both p<0.001), and the p value of the trend test was < 0.001. In the subgroup analysis, a notably strong negative association between CDAI and the risk of all-cause mortality was only observed in men (p for interaction < 0.001).Conclusions: Higher CDAI is associated with a reduced risk of all-cause mortality exclusively in adult males, underscoring the substantial influence of gender on this relationship.

    Keywords: All-cause mortality, Antioxidant index, composite dietary, Gender difference, NHANES

    Received: 05 Nov 2024; Accepted: 19 Feb 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Lanzhi, Zeng, Wang, Hu and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Weiye Wang, Department of Public Health, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Jinggangshan University, Ji'an, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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