Abstract

As well as many countries, in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), non-communicable diseases are becoming an epidemic health problem. Scientific studies prove that these diseases are related to the nutritional types adopted in the last decades and which could be predicted by control of metabolic biomarkers during lifespan. Saudi Arabia has experienced marked nutritional changes and rapid urbanization in recent decades and in parallel incidence of health problems such as diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and cancers increases. This research was carried out to study the influence of canteen food on some metabolic biomarkers within freshman students in Jazan. For that, students were asked to answer questionnaires about their consumption from the canteen, socio and economic status, frequency and quality of their meals and some daily habits. Also, some metabolic biomarkers; body mass index (BMI); total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL), high density lipoprotein (HDL), total protein (TP), albumin (Alb), triglyceride (TG), fasting blood glucose (FBG), uric acid (UA) and hemoglobin (Hb) levels were checked twice, at the first week of the first semester then again 14 weeks after. The results showed that these students eat regularly French fries, pizza and pasta. Sweets were consumed frequently and at high rates. However, vegetables and fruits were rarely consumed. For metabolic biomarkers, BMI and LD increased significantly. However, FBG, Alb, TP and HDL decreased significantly. As conclusion, our results proved that during freshman year, students’ health could be influenced and some health biomarkers could be changed.

Key words: NCDs, nutrition, student, freshman, Saudi Arabia.

Abbreviation

CDs: communicable diseases, NCDs: non-communicable diseases, BMI: body mass index, LDL: low density lipoprotein, HDL: high density lipoprotein, TP: total protein, Alb: albumin, TG: triglyceride, FBG: fasting blood glucose; Hb: hemoglobin, Tchol: total cholesterol, UA: uric acid.