Effect of a vegetarian diet on the treatment efficacy of peginterferon plus ribavirin in chronic hepatitis C patients: A retrospective cohort study

摘要

The aim of the study was to compare the treatment efficacy of peginterferon plus ribavirin on vegetarian vs omnivorous (nonvegetarian) patients with chronic hepatitis C infection. Two hundred and fifty-four hepatitis C virus (HCV) viremic patients with elevated alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, who received peginterferon plus ribavirin therapy were included in this study. Sixty-one patients (24.0%) were vegetarians and 193 patients (76.0%) were omnivores. We analyzed the sustained virological response (SVR) and compared the data between the two treatment groups using a logistic-regression model. Other possible confounding factors such as age, gender, body mass index, HCV genotype, pretreatment ALT levels and HCV viral count, type of peginterferon used, and status of cirrhosis, coronary heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes mellitus were also included in the analysis. SVR was demonstrated in 77% of the vegetarian cohort (47 out of 61 patients) and 76.2% of the omnivorous cohort (147 out of 193 patients). In the multivariate logistic-regression analysis, we found that a vegetarian diet was not associated with an increased protection against an SVR (odds ratio [OR] 1.35; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.61-2.99). HCV genotype lb (OR 0.51; 95% CI 0.27-0.98), ALT level (OR 1.01; 95% CI 1.00-1.01), cirrhotic (OR 0.20; 95% CI 0.08-0.49), and diabetic (OR 0.22; 95% CI 0.08-0.64) at pretreatment baseline were significantly associated with a clinical SVR. A vegetarian diet exerts no influence on the treatment efficacy of peginterferon plus ribavirin cotherapy among patients with chronic hepatitis C infection.