Diet Quality of Chronic Kidney Disease Patients and the Impact of Nutritional Counseling.

OBJECTIVES: The aims of the study were to evaluate the quality of the diet of nondialysis-dependent patients with chronic kidney disease and to investigate the impact of dietary counseling in the quality of the diet of these patients.

METHODS: In the cross-sectional analysis, 3-day food records of 100 nondialysis-dependent patients with chronic kidney disease patients, in the first visit to the renal dietitians, were evaluated using the Diet Quality Index (DQI). Under-reporters were excluded. DQI is comprised by 10 components: 6 are food groups (fruits, vegetables, cereals, milk and dairy, meats and eggs, and legumes); 3 are nutrients (total fat, sodium, and cholesterol), and the last one is the diet variety. Each component is scored from 0 to 10, according to the adequacy of the Brazilian dietary guideline, and an overall score ranging from 0 (poor) to 100 (good) is obtained. In a subsample of 44 patients, a prospective analysis was performed to compare the DQI and its components before and after dietary counseling.

RESULTS: The median DQI score was 68.6 (62.3-75.6; interquartile range), which means that most of the patients (92%) had a diet that "needs improvement" (DQI between 50 and 80 points). The DQI components with the lowest scores (lower adequacy) were sodium (0.0 [0.0-0.9]), dairy (3.9 [2.1-6.0]), and vegetables (6.0 [2.8-9.5]), whereas meat/egg, legumes, and cholesterol had the highest scores. Vegetables, legumes, and diet variety components were significantly lower in the lower tertiles of DQI. After a median follow-up of 25.0 (17.0-35.8) months comprising 6 (5-10) visits to the dietitian, energy, protein, and micronutrients intake were significantly reduced. The dietary counseling did not improve the overall DQI (after: 69.0 [69.0-74.8]; P = .95) and, a significant reduction in the score of legumes (from 10.0 [2.7-10.0] to 7.8 [4.7-10.0], P = .00) and diet variety (from 7.0 [5.3-10.0] to 6.0 [4.0-9.0], P = .02) components were observed.

CONCLUSION: The diet of this cohort of patients needs to be improved, particularly regarding vegetables, food variety, and sodium intake. Dietary counseling had no positive impact on the diet quality. This result highlights the importance of focusing the dietary counseling not simply on nutrient or food restriction but providing healthy food choices aiming to improve the overall diet quality of the patients.