Adherence to a low-fat, high-protein diet and gastroesophageal reflux disorder among Iranian adults

Objective: This study was performed to determine the association between consumption of low-fat, high-protein diet and GERD in a large group of the Iranian population. Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on 3362 participants. 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. We defined GERD as the presence of heartburn sometimes, often, or always during the three months prior to the study. Results: Dietary fat intake was not significantly associated with GERD, even after further controlling for confounding factors including BMI (Odds ratio [OR] for comparing highest vs. lowest quartiles of fat intake: 1.11; 95% CI: 0.96-1.78). Similar findings were made for protein intakes, such that those with the highest protein intakes did not have a significantly reduced odds for GERD, either before (OR: 0.83; 95% CI: 0.67-1.04) or after adjustment for potential confounders (OR: 0.97; 95% CI: 0.56-1.67) including BMI (OR: 0.84; 95% CI: 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, we found no significant association between adherence to a low-fat, high-protein diet and odds of GERD. Additional controlling for BMI did not significantly alter this result. Conclusion: In this large-scale cross-sectional study among Iranian adults, we failed to find any significant association between adherence to a low-fat high-protein diet and odds of GERD. It seems that more studies with different designs are needed to achieve a definitive conclusion.