China has been undergoing a rapid nutrition transition in the past few decades. This review aims to characterise commonly reported dietary patterns in Chinese populations and their associations with health outcomes.

We searched PubMed, Embase and CNKI from inception to June 2020 to identify observational studies reporting dietary patterns or the associations between dietary patterns and health outcomes. Information regarding dietary patterns, their association with health outcomes and other related items was collected.

Chinese population and Chinese immigrants.

Not applicable.

Results from 130 studies with over 900 000 participants were included. Six dietary patterns were identified: traditional whole-grain diet (Traditional WG), traditional non-whole-grain diet (Traditional NWG), plant-based diet (Plant-based), animal food diet (Animal-food), Western energy-dense diet (Western) and other unclassified diets (Unclassified). The Plant-based diet was associated with a reduced risk of CVD and cancer from prospective studies, reduced risk of diabetes, hypertension, cognitive impairment and depressive symptoms from all study designs. The Traditional WG diet was associated with a reduced risk of diabetes and hypertension. Animal-food diet is associated with a range of metabolic diseases, and Western diet was associated with increased risks of obesity and depressive symptoms.

Multiple dietary patterns identified reflect the diversity and transitioning of the Chinese diet. A healthy Chinese diet, comprising both the Traditional WG and Plant-based diets, was associated with reduced risks of specific undesirable health outcomes. Promoting this healthy diet will improve public health among the Chinese populations.

To develop a new model of desirable dietary pattern (N-DDP) score for Chinese diets and to validate it against the nutrient-rich foods (NRF) index.

The N-DDP score model followed the principles of the traditional DDP (T-DDP) score model (DDP-China for 2000) proposed in 1991 and of food grouping in the dietary pagoda for Chinese residents in 2007, and made detailed ratings by expressing the food weight coefficient, reasonable maximum limit of the score and an algorithm of the deserved score for each group of foods after considering current nutritional problems of Chinese residents. The N-DDP score model was validated against the NRF9·3 index with linear regression analysis and compared with the T-DDP score model.

One set of dietary data was extracted from the diet recommended by the dietary pagoda for Chinese residents in 2007 and the literature on dietary surveys in China. The other two sets of dietary data were from a dietary survey in 2011. DDP scores for all three dietary data sets were calculated with the N-DDP score model and the T-DDP score model.

All items of dietary records in the three dietary data sets were included in the present study.

All DDP scores obtained with the N-DDP score model were positively correlated (P = 0·000) with the NRF9·3 index. DDP scores obtained with the N-DDP score model had higher R2 with the NRF9·3 index than those of the T-DDP score model, as well as higher β values.

It can be considered that the N-DDP score is a more accurate and convenient tool to evaluate current individual and group diet for Chinese residents.