Development of a dietary index based on the Brazilian Cardioprotective Nutritional Program

BACKGROUND: The diet of the Brazilian Cardioprotective Nutritional Programme (BALANCE) classified food into four groups and set the daily amount to be consumed. The nutritional aspects of BALANCE are different from other dietary recommendations, therefore it is not possible to use existing diet indexes (DI) to associate this diet with cardiovascular disease. OBJECTIVE: To describe the development of BALANCE DI, evaluate its internal consistency, construct validity and population characteristics associated with the index. METHODS: We analyzed baseline data from BALANCE randomized clinical trial (www.clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01620398). The four food groups of the studied diet were adopted as index components. Each index component received points ranging from 0 to 10 and the total score ranged from 0 to 40.