Association between plant-based dietary index and gallstone disease: A cross sectional study from NHANES

Background The relationship between plant-based diets and gallstone disease has been debated. This study aimed to shed light on the association between plant-based dietary index and the risk of developing gallstone disease. Methods Eligible participants were selected from National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2017–2020. Three plant-based diet indexes (PDI, healthy PDI, unhealthy PDI) were calculated using data from two NHANES 24-h dietary recall interviews. Restricted Cubic Spline and multivariate logistic regression were used to analyze the associations. Subgroup analysis was adopted to make the results more robust. Results A total of 5673 eligible participants were analyzed. After adjusting for various confounding variables, uPDI was positively associated with gallstone disease (OR = 1.53, 95%CI: 1.02–2.29). No association was found between PDI/hPDI and gallstone disease (p > 0.05). The results of subgroup analysis did not show any positive association between uPDI and gallstones in specific groups. Conclusion Our study shows that the elevated uPDI are linked to a higher risk of gallstone disease.