Association of Symptoms with Eating Habits and Food Preferences in Chronic Gastritis Patients: A Cross‐Sectional Study

Abstract

<jats:p><jats:italic>Purpose</jats:italic>. There is a lack of research on the relationship between symptoms and dietary factors of chronic gastritis (CG) patients, and the contribution of dietary management in relieving symptoms of CG patients has not attracted enough attention. This study aimed to identify the associations between different symptoms and dietary factors. <jats:italic>Patients and Methods</jats:italic>. All CG patients in this cross-sectional study were recruited from 3 hospitals in Beijing, China, from October 2015 to January 2016. Association Rule Mining analysis was performed to identify the correlations between gastrointestinal symptoms and dietary factors (including eating habits and food preferences), and subgroup analysis focused on gender differences. <jats:italic>Results</jats:italic>. The majority of patients (58.17%) reported that their symptoms were related to dietary factors. About 53% reported that they had the habit of “eating too fast,” followed by “irregular mealtimes” (29.66%) and “eating leftover food” (28.14%). Sweets (27.57%), spicy foods (25.10%), and meat (24.33%) were the most popular among all participants. Stomachache and gastric distention were the most common symptoms and were both associated with irregular mealtimes, irregular meal sizes, eating out in restaurants, meats, barbecue, fried foods, sour foods, sweets, snacks, and salty foods (support &gt;0.05 and lift &gt;1.0). Their most strongly associated factors were irregular meal sizes, barbecues, and snacks (lift &gt;1.2). In addition, irregular mealtimes, salty foods, and sweet foods may be important diet factors influencing the symptoms in CG patients (support &gt;0.05 and lift &gt;1.0), as they were associated with almost all dyspeptic symptoms in the whole group and subgroup analyses. Furthermore, alcohol, barbecue, and spicy foods were associated with almost all symptoms for males (support &gt;0.05 and lift &gt;1.0), but sweets were the only dietary factor associated with all symptoms for females (support &gt;0.05 and lift &gt;1.0). <jats:italic>Conclusion</jats:italic>. This study has provided new data for the association of symptoms with eating habits and food preferences in CG patients. The role of individual daily management schemes, such as dietary or lifestyle programs, needs more attention.</jats:p>

Influence of Standardized Nursing Intervention Combined with Mindfulness Stress Reduction Training on the Curative Effect, Negative Emotion, and Quality of Life in Patients with Chronic Gastritis and Gastric Ulcer

“…Chronic gastritis refers to chronic inflammatory lesions of gastric mucosa caused by various factors. Chronic gastritis can be diagnosed by gastroscopy, and its incidence ranks first among various stomach diseases [2]. Gastric ulcer is an ulcer caused by the damage of the mucosal muscle layer caused by gastric acid digestion of gastrointestinal mucosa.…”

Association between the Dietary Inflammatory Index and Gastric Disease Risk: Findings from a Korean Population-Based Cohort Study

“…Similarly, ingestion of fried foods, barbecued foods, snacks, and very sweet, spicy, and salty foods from Western dietary patterns may activate innate immunity by producing excessive amounts of pro-inflammatory cytokines, resulting in chronic systemic or tissuespecific simmering inflammation in the stomach, gastric distension, and chronic or frequent stomach aches [59]. In patients with chronic gastritis, gastrointestinal symptoms were correlated with unhealthy dietary factors and food preferences, among which irregular mealtimes and consumption of salty and sweet foods were found to be the strongest risk factors [25]. From these studies, it is evident that dietary and lifestyle habits influence the risk of the progression of precancerous gastric lesions, leading to disease progression.…”

“…Previous studies have shown that diet plays an important role in the etiology of chronic inflammation of the gastric mucosa [22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. A high-fat diet impairs the gastrointestinal tract by producing bile acids, resulting in the expression of pro-inflammatory enzymes and cytokines that contribute to the development of insulin resistance [22].…”

“…Sugars in carbonated drinks reduce esophageal sphincter pressure and increase gastroesophageal pressure, which causes irritation in the mucosal lining and alters the gut microbiota [24]. Spicy foods provoke irritation of the mucous membrane by elevating the levels of gastric secretion, and inflammation of the stomach lining [25]. However, in the long term, these spicy foods reduce chronic, systemic, and tissue-specific simmering inflammation [32].…”

Food Preferences and Food Choice Determinants in a Polish Adolescents’ COVID-19 Experience (PLACE-19) Study

“…Food preferences are determinants of food choices [ 7 ] and are also significantly associated with the followed diet [ 8 ] and its health-related consequences, including body mass [ 9 ], obesity risk [ 10 ], and gastrointestinal symptoms [ 11 ]. As a result, understanding food preferences is necessary for public health purposes, to enable adequate nutritional education to improve the general quality of diet and influence food choices [ 12 ].…”