Low dietary quality in patients with COPD and the association with disease severity: A cross-sectional study.

Background and objectives: Dietary nutrition plays an essential role in the progression of chronic obstruc-tive pulmonary disease (COPD). This study aimed to use Chinese Healthy Eating Index (CHEI) to evaluate dietary quality in COPD patients and investigate the relationship between dietary quality and COPD disease severity.

Methods and study design: A total of 525 COPD inpatients were collected from December 1st, 2022, to December 1st, 2023. The dietary intake was collected through food frequency questionnaires (FFQ), and diet quality was assessed by the CHEI. Modified Medical Research Council Dyspnea Scale (mMRC), the COPD assessment test (CAT), and Global Initiative for Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) stage were used to assess disease severity. Multivariable logistic regression was used to analyze the association between the total CHEI score, and its component scores and COPD disease severity.

Results: The CHEI score with COPD pa-tients is 56.75±8.89. The CAT score of the low CHEI group was significantly higher than that of the high CHEI group (p <0.05). Ordinal logistic regression analysis indicated that the group with higher CHEI total scores was significantly associated with the low grade of mMRC (OR: 0.982, 95%CI: 0.964, 1.000, p <0.05). And the higher intake of tubers, whole grains and mixed beans, and fish and seafood were all associated with lower mMRC grades (p <0.05).

Conclusions: COPD patients have poor dietary quality. High CHEI scores were associated with the low mMRC grades. Patients with COPD should be encouraged to maintain a good quality diet to reduce the risk of disease exacerbation.