Personalized Nutrition Using PROCARDIO to Reduce Cardiometabolic Risk in the Academic Community: A Study Protocol with Preliminary Results.

Background

Strategies of promotion, prevention and health care of individuals with cardiometabolic risk are necessary to control cardiovascular diseases.

Objective

To describe a study design and present partial results of nutritional counseling in the Cardiovascular Health Care Program (PROCARDIO).

Methods

PROCARDIO is a nutritional intervention program for students and workers or dependents of the Brazilian university academic community who are at risk of or have a cardiovascular disease (Brazilian Registry of Clinical Trials n° RBR-5n4y2g). Patients are submitted to nutritional clinical assessments involving anthropometry, biochemical analysis, sociodemographic and clinical, lifestyle and dietary data. Patients are provided with nutritional counseling, dietetic workshops and educational materials. In addition, nutritional following-ups are performed monthly.

Results

The sample consisted of 296 patients (171 F/125 M, 27-56 years). The prevalence of individuals with excess body weight, dyslipidemia, diabetes and hypertension in the sample were 74.7% (n = 222), 79.1% (n = 235), 18.2% (n = 54) and 25.3% (n = 75), respectively. After three months of nutritional counseling, PROCARDIO users had decreased body fat, waist circumference, fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol and LDL-C (p < 0.05). Specifically, patients with diabetes exhibited reduced glycated hemoglobin concentrations (p < 0.05); those with dyslipidemia showed a reduction in total cholesterol, LDL-C and LDL/HDL (p < 0.05) concentrations; and those with excess body weight reduced waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, body fat, uric acid and total cholesterol/HDL-C ratios (p < 0.05).

Conclusion

PROCARDIO patients concluded with a clinical-metabolic improvement regardless of chronic diseases after receiving nutritional counseling, thus highlighting the importance of individual actions and strategies to be based on personalized nutrition for achieving proposed therapeutic targets.