Zafar Ali, Riaz Muhammad, Muhammad Abdur Rahman Afridi, Ali Sebtain, Muhammad Numan Saleem, Intekhab Alam.
Dietary restriction practices and its relationship with alanine aminotransferase levels in patients with chronic hepatitis C.
J Postgrad Med Inst Jan ;32(1):28-34.

Objective: To determine the diet restriction practices in patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) and its relationship with alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels. Methodology: This was a hospital based descriptive study carried out from January 2013 to December 2014. A total of 504 CHC patients of more than 12 years age and of either gender were included in the study. Patients were selected by non-probability convenient sampling method. They were thoroughly asked about their dietary habits, diet restriction, degree of diet restriction (mild, moderate & severe) and about who advised the diet restriction (doctors, quakes, relatives or self-restriction). Diet restriction was correlated with ALT levels using chi square test and Spearman rank correlation test. Statistical significance was considered at p value <0.05. Results: Out of 504 patients, there were 214 (42.5%) males and 290 (57.5%) females. Age of the patients ranged from 14 to 90 years with mean age of 37.35 ±12.770 years. Diet restriction was present in 332 (65.9%) patients. Among these, 55 (16.56%) had mild diet restriction, 69 (20.78%) had moderate dietary restriction while severe diet restriction was found in 208 (62.65%) patients. In 113 (34.0%) patients, diet restriction was advised by quakes followed by relatives or family members in 107 (32.2%), doctors 88 (26.5 %) and self-restriction 24 (7.2%) patients. Correlation of ALT levels with diet restriction or the degrees of diet restrictions was statistically not significant, ?2 =1.865, p value =0.601. Conclusion: Diet restriction was found in a significant number of CHC patients. Most of them had severe dietary restriction. Correlation of ALT levels with presence of diet restriction or degrees of diet restrictions was not found to be statistically significant.

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