Introduction
Dietary patterns can be defined as the various combinations, proportions, quantities and varieties of different foods and beverages in diets and the habitual decisions made by individuals on how frequently to consume these foods. Notably, dietary patterns include multiple dietary components that have been operationalized or summed up as a single exposure. Several studies that have been conducted on dietary patterns and habits show that it is habitually not possible to separate the individual effects of nutrients and the effects of the totality of the diet. Most studies conducted on the subject matter have used either diet indexes/scores or data-driven ...