Calculation of three PDIs.

BackgroundThe 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.MethodsEligible 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.ResultsA 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.ConclusionOur study shows that the elevated uPDI are linked to a higher risk of gallstone disease.