The Frankfurt Complaint Questionnaire (FCQ) is a widely used method to investigate non-psychotic subjective experiences of schizophrenics. Less is known about its dimensional structure. Therefore, principal components analyses (PCA) were conducted with the FCQ data of 505 schizophrenics and 187 alcoholics. Furthermore, results of a former analysis using item-to-item comparisons between schizophrenics and alcoholics were examined. PCA yielded two factors called ‘dysphoric concomitants of severe illness particularly impairing concentration’ and ‘subjective experiences of perceptual uncertainties’. Neither of the factors was specific to schizophrenia. The item comparisons suggest that only a group of eight FCQ items (subscale ‘FCQ-S’) is specific to schizophrenia while ten items (‘FCQ-A’) are related more to alcoholism. The validity of FCQ-S and FCQ-A was confirmed: schizophrenics reached high scores in FCQ-S and low scores in FCQ-A; alcoholics scored high in FCQ-A and low in FCQ-S; schizophrenics with an additional alcohol disorder scored high in both of the subscales. It is concluded that direct group comparisons seem to be promising for the identification of non-psychotic subjective phenomena which are characteristic for schizophrenia.

Pre-diabetes increases the risk of diabetes and CVD. Several studies have investigated the relationship between food intake and pre-diabetes morbidity, but the dietary patterns of pre-diabetes subjects were not taken into consideration. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between dietary patterns and pre-diabetes. In this regard, 150 pre-diabetic subjects and 150 healthy controls, who attended the diabetes screening centre in Shahreza, Iran, were matched for age group and sex. The weight, height, waist circumference, physical activity, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, and blood glucose levels of all participants were measured. Dietary information was collected using a semi-quantitative FFQ. Using factor analysis, two dietary patterns were identified: the vegetables, fruits and legumes (VFL) dietary pattern and the sweet, solid fat, meat and mayonnaise (SSMM) dietary pattern. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess the relationship between pre-diabetes and dietary patterns. After adjusting for age, education, physical activity, BMI and energy intake, the VFL dietary pattern was found to be negatively associated with lower pre-diabetes (OR 0·16; 95 % CI 0·10, 0·26). Furthermore, the SSMM dietary pattern was positively associated with pre-diabetes (OR 5·45; 95 % CI 3·22, 9·23). In conclusion, the VFL dietary pattern is inversely related to pre-diabetes, whereas the SSMM dietary pattern is associated with increased risk of pre-diabetes.

In the present study, we evaluated the reproducibility and validity of dietary patterns among Chinese adult populations. A random subsample of 203 participants (aged 31–80 years) from a community-based nutrition and health survey was enrolled. An eighty-seven-item FFQ was administered twice (FFQ1 and FFQ2) 1 year apart; four 3 consecutive day, 24-h dietary recalls (24-HDR, as a reference method) were performed between the administrations of the two FFQ every 3 months. Dietary patterns from three separate dietary sources were derived using factor analysis based on twenty-eight predefined food groups. Comparisons between dietary pattern scores were made by using Pearson’s or intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC), cross-classification analysis, weighted κ statistic and Bland–Altman plots; the four major dietary patterns identified from FFQ1, FFQ2 and 24-HDR were similar. Regarding reproducibility, ICC for z-scores between FFQ1 and FFQ2 were all >0·6 for dietary patterns. The ‘animal and plant protein’ pattern had the highest ICC of 0·870. For validity, the adjusted Pearson’s correlation coefficients for dietary pattern z-scores between two FFQ and the mean of four 3 consecutive day 24-HDR ranged from 0·387 for the ‘Chinese traditional’ pattern to 0·838 for the ‘animal and plant protein’ pattern. More than 75 % of the participants were classified into the same or adjacent quartile, and <5 % were misclassified into opposite quartiles. The weighted κ ranged from 0·259 to 0·680. Bland–Altman plots indicated that no significant deviation was found between two dietary assessment methods. Our findings indicate a good reasonable reproducibility and a reasonable validity of dietary patterns derived by factor analysis in China.

Evidence that diet is associated with breast cancer risk is inconsistent. Most of the studies have focused on risks associated with specific foods and nutrients, rather than overall diet. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the association between dietary patterns and breast cancer risk in Japanese women. A total of 49 552 Japanese women were followed-up from 1995 to 1998 (5-year follow-up survey) until the end of 2012 for an average of 14·6 years. During 725 534 person-years of follow-up, 718 cases of breast cancer were identified. We identified three dietary patterns (prudent, westernised and traditional Japanese). The westernised dietary pattern was associated with a 32 % increase in breast cancer risk (hazard ratios (HR) 1·32; 95 % CI 1·03, 1·70; Ptrend=0·04). In particular, subjects with extreme intake of the westernised diet (quintile (Q) Q5_5th) had an 83 % increase in risk of breast cancer in contrast to those in the lowest Q1 (HR 1·83; 95 % CI 1·25, 2·68; Ptrend=0·01). In analyses stratified by menopausal status, postmenopausal subjects in the highest quintile of the westernised dietary pattern had a 29 % increased risk of breast cancer (HR 1·29; 95 % CI 0·99, 1·76; Ptrend=0·04). With regard to hormone receptor status, the westernised dietary pattern was associated with an increased risk of oestrogen receptor-positive/progesterone receptor-positivetumours (HR 2·49; 95 % CI 1·40, 4·43; Ptrend<0·01). The other dietary patterns were not associated with the risk of breast cancer in Japanese women. A westernised dietary pattern is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer in Japanese women.