Clinical trial NCT06038344: Influence of a Gluten Free Food Guide on Diet Quality and Adherence to the GFD in Youth With Celiac Disease
Official title: Evaluation of the Gluten Free Food Guide on Diet Quality and Adherence to the GFD in Newly Diagnosed Children and Youth With Celiac Disease in the Clinical Setting
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING
Phase: NA
Conditions: Celiac Disease in Children
Gluten Enteropathy
Diet; Deficiency
Adherence, Treatment
Keywords: Gluten-Free Food Guide
Dietary Education
Dietary Quality
Celiac Disease
Lead sponsor: University of Alberta
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Alberta Health services
First posted: 2023-09-14
Enrollment: 40
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 5
Maximum age (years): 18
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune gastrointestinal disease that is caused by intolerance to gluten in the diet. The mainstay of treatment is a gluten-free diet (GFD). Children with CD on the GFD often have low micronutrient intakes (e.g. folate, iron) and high intakes of sugar and fat. Current Canadian nutrition guideline does not address these nutritional limitations. The investigation team developed a novel GF-food guide (GFFG). This randomized clinical trial aims to evaluate the impact of GFFG on diet quality and adherence to the GFD in newly diagnosed children and youth with celiac disease in the clinical setting. The investigators will compare dietary counselling using the GFFG versus the standard of care in children newly diagnosed with CD and their parents to see if participant care outcomes (diet quality, nutrition literacy, adherence to the GFD) improved over six months.

Detailed description: Background: The only treatment for celiac disease (CD) is the gluten-free (GF) diet which affects every 1 in 100 individuals. Non-adherence to the diet can lead to intestinal damage and nutrient malabsorption, which can negatively impact a critical period of growth and development in children. Despite adherence, the GF diet does not guarantee nutritional adequacy in children and can lead to obesity and chronic disease. A number of studies confirm that children and adults on GFDs often face several nutritional challenges, including low intakes of fibre, vitamin D, zinc, magnesium and high intakes of simple sugars and saturated fats associated with poor diet quality. Prepackaged GF foods are often high in simple sugars and saturated fat while being low in fibre, which are all known risk factors for the development of chronic disease in the adult population. While parents and newly diagnosed children with CD show significant improvements in knowledge about the GF diet after receiving standard-of-care education from healthcare practitioners at the time of diagnosis, some children with CD continue to experience significant challenges with reduced diet quality and nutritional inadequacy while on the GF diet, even after dietary education. Currently, there are no existing nutrition guidelines that are focused on the GFD. To address this issue, the investigation team recently developed a gluten-free food guide (GFFG). The GFFG consists of overall diet recommendations with a layout that mirrors the new Canada's Food Guide, associated teaching materials that address concepts related to nutrition literacy and knowledge as identified in the pre-guide stakeholder engagement with health care providers (RD, RN, MD) and families with children with CD (Mager et al., Br J Nutr 2022). Focus groups and online surveys were conducted for feasibility analysis with end-stakeholders (health professionals, parents/caregivers of children with CD, and adolescents with CD) to enable a comprehensive evaluation of the feasibility of the food guide in terms of content and layout (Mager et al., Br J Nutr 2022).

Study Objective: The study purpose is to compare the impact of dietary counselling using the GFFG versus standard of care (SOC) in children/adolescents and their parent/caregiver newly diagnosed with CD on participant care outcomes (diet quality, nutrition literacy, adherence to the GFD) over six months.

Hypothesis: The GFFG will increase diet quality and parental food literacy and improve adherence to the GFD in newly diagnosed children with CD and their parents over six months.

Sample size: Forty families (20/group) are proposed to enroll in this study. This sample size was based on a convenient sample.

Data Analysis: Data will be expressed as mean (± SD) or median (interquartile range) for parametric and non-parametric variables, respectively (tested by the Shapiro-Wilk test). T-tests (parametric) or Mann Whitney (non-parametric) tests to compare household characteristics (sociodemographic), adherence to the GFD, and DQ between SOC vs SOC+GFFG. Pearson and/or Spearman correlations will be conducted to assess the associations between child DQ and parental nutrition literacy, GFD adherence and household sociodemographics. Chi-square tests will be used to determine significant differences between categorical variables. P value \< 0.05 adjusted for multiple comparisons will determine statistical significance.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* Children and adolescents, male and female, 5-18 years of age and their parents.
* Clinically diagnosed celiac disease
* Diagnosis within 3 months

Exclusion Criteria:

* Children, male and female, \<5 years of age
* Celiac disease diagnosis \>3 months
* Children/adolescents diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D)
* Not clinically diagnosed with celiac disease

Primary outcomes:
measure: Dietary quality
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: Dietary quality
timeFrame: 6 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Self-reported adherence to the gluten-free diet.
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: Self-reported adherence to the gluten-free diet
timeFrame: 6 months
measure: Gluten intake
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: Gluten intake
timeFrame: 6 months
measure: Parental Nutrition Literacy
timeFrame: Baseline
measure: Parental Nutrition Literacy
timeFrame: 6 months
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Edmonton
country: Canada
facility: Clinical Research Unit, University of Alberta
state: Alberta
Study officials:
affiliation: University of Alberta
name: Diana R Mager
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Mager DR, Cyrkot S, Lirette C, Brill H, Dowhaniuk J, Mileski H, Basualdo-Hammond C, Nasser R, Assor E, Marcon M, Turner JM. Nutritional considerations of a paediatric gluten-free food guide for coeliac disease. Br J Nutr. 2022 Feb 14;127(3):421-430. doi: 10.1017/S0007114521000994. Epub 2021 Mar 22.
citation: Mager DR, Cyrkot S, Lirette C, Brill H, Dowhaniuk J, Mileski H, Basualdo-Hammond C, Nasser R, Assor E, Marcon M, Turner JM. Evaluation of a paediatric gluten-free food guide by children and youth with coeliac disease, their parents and health care professionals. Br J Nutr. 2022 Jun 28;127(12):1784-1795. doi: 10.1017/S0007114521002774. Epub 2021 Jul 23.