Significance of Dietary Intake during Combined Peg-interferon plus Ribavirin Therapy for Chronic Hepatitis C : Relationship between Polyunsaturated Fatty Acid and Early Virologic Response

Abstract

A nutritional survey with a brief-type self-administered diet history questionnaire was conducted in 41 chronic hepatitis C patients before and 12 weeks after the start of peginterferon plus ribavirin therapy. The emphasis of this survey was to analyze the relationship between the amount of polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) intake and early virologic response (EVR). EVR was considered to be positive in the cases where HCV-RNA level was less than its quantitation limit (1 . 2 Log IU/mL). Viral RNA 5 . 0 Log IU/mL was defined as high viral load. 12 weeks after the start of treatment, the amount of PUFA intake decreased significantly because of the adverse reactions associated with the therapy etc. EVR positivity was seen in 60.0% patients with genotype 1b(n=20: high virus load, n=17/low virus load, n=3). Analysis of the relationship between PUFA intake and EVR showed that EVR was positive in all patients except one in the group with the change in the amount of PUFA after the start of treatment and the amount before the treatment(ΔPUFA) was above -0.03 g/kg (i. e., increase or a decrease of 0 . 03 g/kg or less), and the positive EVR rate in these patients was significantly higher than the EVR rate for the other patients showing decrease in PUFA intake after the start of treatment (87 . 5% vs 41 . 7%, p=0 . 0404). These results suggest that dietary intake, especially in PUFA, during peg-interferon plus ribavirin therapy can improve the treatment response.