The prevalence of food addiction and its association with type 2 diabetes: a systematic review with meta-analysis

The study aim was to determine the prevalence of food addiction (FA) in individuals with type 2 diabetes and to assess the association between FA and type 2 diabetes. MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Sciences, Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences, ScienceDirect, Scopus and PsycINFO were searched until November 2024. This study was registered with PROSPERO (CRD42023465903). Cross-sectional studies, case–control, cohorts and clinical trials that were carried out with individuals with type 2 diabetes, regardless of age and sex, were included. The complete data extracted included the prevalence, OR and/or risk ratio of FA, the number of individuals evaluated, age, sex, weight, presence of co-morbidities, age of participants and FA symptoms. A pooled prevalence of FA of 30 % (95 % CI (18, 44) with estimated predictive interval (0; 85); I 2 = 99·51; 12 studies; 15 947 participants) was identified. For the associations between FA and type 2 diabetes, we found a grouped crude OR value of 2·35 (95 % CI (1·71, 2·98)). The pooled OR adjusted for age and sex was 2·60 (95 % CI (1·77, 3·42)). Finally, the OR adjusted for age, sex and BMI was 2·01 (95 % CI (1·39, 2·64)). The results of the meta-analyses showed a high prevalence of FA in individuals with type 2 diabetes and that the associations between these two conditions remained even after adjustment for age, sex and BMI, although with a high heterogeneity among individual estimates.