Evaluation of the relationship between tryptophan consumption and obesity among University Students

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the level of tryptophan consumption among university students and to determine its relationship with obesity. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire was conducted voluntarily to 1000 undergraduate students, 433 boys and 567 girls from Istanbul Aydın University in this correlation study. Students' daily tryptophan intake was determined according to the frequency of consumption of foods containing tryptophan, body weight, height, waist circumference were measured. SPSS 22.0 program was used for data analysis. Results: 56.7% of the students participating in the study are women and 43.3% are men. The average age and the standard deviation of the participants are 21,20±1,99 years, the minimum age is 17 years and the maximum age is 39. 17.5% of the participants are weak in terms of BMI, 33.8% are normal, 40.5% are overweight and 8.2% are obese. Comparing BMI values according to the students' gender, obesity is higher in girls than in boys (p <0.05). In terms of BMI, the number of obese and fat people is higher than male students. When looking at the tryptophan consumption amounts of students; the average amount of tryptophan is 321.62 mg in males and 323.41 mg in females. When the tryptophan consumption and BMI values of the students were examined, there was no statistically significant difference between them (p> 0.05). There was no significant relationship between tryptophan consumption and height and age, BMI, and the width of the waistline (p>0,05). Conclusion: University students consume high amounts of tryptophan, and there is no relation between the consumption of tryptophan on BMI and further extensive studies are needed.