Pro-inflammatory dietary patterns and their association with cardiovascular disease and pancreatic cancer in a hospital population: a cross-sectional study

Objective: To examine whether a concise, clinic-feasible Patient Inflammatory Diet Score (PIDS) relates to prevalent pancreatic cancer and cardiovascular disease (CVD) in a hospital population, and to explore associations with systemic inflammation. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study among 401 adults (≥40 years) attending cardiology, gastroenterology, or oncology services (2018-2022). A 10-12-min questionnaire captured sociodemographics, lifestyle, and habitual intake of pro- and anti-inflammatory food groups to derive the PIDS (quartiles). Pancreatic cancer and CVD were ascertained from de-identified electronic records; high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) indexed systemic inflammation. Robust Poisson models estimated prevalence ratios (PRs) across PIDS quartiles with prespecified adjustments and subgroup/sensitivity analyses. Results: , and restriction to participants without CVD. No synergistic effects were observed for joint PIDS-CVD categories. Conclusion: In this pragmatic clinical setting, a brief, food-based inflammatory diet score did not discriminate cross-sectional differences in pancreatic-cancer prevalence or CVD, nor did it correlate meaningfully with hsCRP. These null findings bound plausible effect sizes and support the need for larger, prospective studies with richer dietary phenotyping and biomarker integration.