Adherence to low-fat, high-protein diet in relation to gastro-esophageal reflux disorder among Iranian adults

Background/

This study was performed to determine the association between consumption of low-fat, high-protein diet and odds of GERD in a large group of Iranian population.
Subjects and

This cross-sectional study was done on 3362 subjects. We used a validated, self-administered, dish-based semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) with multiple choice frequency response categories for assessing usual dietary intakes. Dietary fat and protein intakes were obtained from the FFQ. To examine the adherence to a low-fat, high protein diet, participants were divided based on median intake of these macronutrients. We defined GERD as the presence of heartburn sometimes, often or always during the three months prior to the study.

Dietary fat intake was not significantly associated with GERD, even after further controlling for confounding factors including BMI (Odds ratio for comparing highest vs. lowest quartiles of fat intake: 1.11; 95% CI: 0.96-1.78). The same findings were also reached for protein intakes; such that those with the highest protein intakes had not significantly reduced odds for GERD, either before (0.83; 0.67-1.04) or after adjustment for potential confounders (0.97; 0.56-1.67) including BMI (0.84; 0.48-1.47). Adherence to a low-fat, high protein diet was not significantly associated with the odds of GERD, even after adjustment for potential confounders, including diet-related variables.

In conclusion, in this large-scale cross-sectional study among Iranian adult population, we failed to find any significant association between adherence to a low-fat high-protein diet and odds of GERD. It seems that in order to achieve a comprehensive result; more studies are needed with different design.