Dietary patterns have been pointed out as useful diet quality indicators, but evidence about their relationship to metabolic phenotypes is still scarce. Thus, the present study aimed to verify the relationship between dietary patterns and metabolic phenotypes in Brazilian adults.

Cross-sectional study. A food consumption frequency questionnaire assessed food consumption profiles. Metabolic phenotypes were defined based on the criteria of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey: overweight or normal weight and metabolically healthy (MHOW and MHNW) or unhealthy (MUOW and MUNW). Dietary patterns were established through exploratory factor analysis and principal component analysis. The associations were tested using multinomial logistic regression.

Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Individuals (n 896) aged 20–59 years of both sexes, selected using probabilistic sampling.

Three dietary patterns were identified: Unhealthy pattern (alcoholic beverages, oils and fats, condiments, soda and juice, sugars and sweets, snacks, and meat and derivatives), Traditional pattern (culinary preparations, beans, milk and dairy products, and coffee and tea) and Healthy pattern (vegetables and fruits, whole grains, chicken and fish, and skimmed milk). Unhealthy pattern was positively associated with the MHOW and MUOW phenotypes in the fourth quartile (OR = 1·84; 95 % CI 1·06, 3·22) and in the third (OR = 1·94; 95 % CI 1·11, 3·39) and fourth (OR = 2·56; 95 % CI 1·41, 4·64) quartiles of consumption, respectively. Healthy pattern was also associated with these phenotypes.

Both the pattern comprising energy-dense foods and the healthier pattern were associated with overweight phenotypes among Brazilian adults.