Dietary habits of men from Podlasie region of Poland in the years 1987-1998 analysed with self-organizing neural networks

Jamiołkowski J, Szpak A, Pawłowska D

The study was conducted on a group of 556 men. Their dietary habits were evaluated 3 times in the years 1987-1998 by the frequency of consumption of 41 food items during last three months. Obtained frequencies were processed by self-organizing Kohonen neural network, allowing to group persons of similar dietary habits into 3 clusters. After analysing frequencies of consumption of each food item in each cluster, in view of health value, one model was described as appropriate, while remaining were described as two different inappropriate models. In three studies during 11 years, statistically significant increase in frequency of appropriate model was observed. That increase was linked with decrease of occurrence of inappropriate models. Additional verification of described models revealed significant differences between them in nutritive ingredients intake, and also in concentrations of HDL cholesterol in the blood serum of men assigned to those dietary patterns.