**Preface**

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading causes of global disease burden and disease-related mortality. The evolution of numerous cardiometabolic risk factors and type 2 diabetes (T2D) related to CVD is driven by visceral obesity, and behavioral lifestyle weight loss therapies are crucial preventative measures that can counteract these metabolic changes.

The long-term maintenance of weight loss following low-calorie diets poses a significant challenge, despite the overwhelming evidence that suggests that the greater the body weight loss, the greater the preventive effect on cardiometabolic risk factors or diabetes.

Greater adherence to suggested dietary patterns and/or consumption of dietary patterns linked to a lower risk of cardiometabolic diseases and other chronic diseases are two characteristics of higher diet quality. There is strong evidence from prospective cohort studies showing that higher food quality is linked to a decreased risk of CVD and T2D.

Therefore, current dietary advice for overall health and cardiometabolic prevention and management places a strong emphasis on maintaining a good dietary pattern over the course of a person's lifetime. High diet quality is a distinguishing characteristic of all recommended dietary patterns for general health and cardiometabolic prevention and treatment, despite the fact that there are minor variations in the precise food- and nutrient-based recommendations made by authorized organizations. A healthy diet is generally agreed to be one that is high in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, low-fat dairy, and foods with lean protein and low levels of saturated fat, added sugar, and sodium. Therefore, rather than arguing over specific food, food group, or nutrient recommendations, attention should be paid to the overall diet, areas of relative agreement about core healthy foods, and the creation of techniques that might successfully nudge people toward improved diet quality.

Changes in diet composition acting on nutrient quality independently of changes in energy intake may be effective in cardiometabolic and T2D risk prevention, offering a more feasible and safe alternative treatment to energy restriction.

This book collates articles summarizing recent evidence on "Diet Quality and Risk of Cardiometabolic and Diabetes".

The book explores more specifically the impact of diet quality in terms of micro- or macronutrient composition, beyond the effect of diet restriction, on the prevention of cardiometabolic and diabetes risk as well as diabetes management. Personalized, quality dietary interventions for cardiometabolic health and diabetes prevention, as well as possible underlying mechanisms, will also be addressed in this book.

This book is relevant to any student or practitioner interested in how diet influences our health in the fields of nutrition, dietetics, medicine, and public health.

In the end, we would like to take this opportunity to express our most profound appreciation to the MDPI Book staff, the editorial team of Nutrients, the assistant editor of this Special Issue, the talented authors, and hardworking and professional reviewers.

> **Giuseppe Della Pepa** *Editor*
