Vegetarian diet may ameliorate uremic pruritus in hemodialysis patients.

OBJECTIVES: Systemic inflammation has been reported to be associated with uremic pruritus (UP). Although a vegetarian diet can reduce systemic inflammation in hemodialysis patients, the effect of vegetarian diet on UP is not clear. The purpose of the study was to know the possible effects of vegetarian diet on UP.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study was done to compare the severity of UP and blood levels of systemic inflammatory markers between vegetarian and non-vegetarian hemodialysis patients. Six non-vegetarian patients with uremic pruritus changed their non-vegetarian diet to vegetarian diet for 2 months. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and pruritus score (PS) were used to measure the UP severity. The serum high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP), and interleukin-2 (IL-2) were used as markers of inflammation.

RESULTS: Both the median VAS scores (p = .043) and the median PS scores (p < .001) were lower in the Vegetarian than in the non-vegetarian group. The median values of hs-CRP in Vegetarian were lower than that for the non-vegetarian (p = .020). The median value of IL-2 was also lower in Vegetarian than that of the non-vegetarian (p = .016). There were 6 non-vegetarian patients shift to vegetarian for 2 months. The pruritus score improved and IL-2 level decreased after change to vegetarian diet.

CONCLUSION: We concluded that vegetarian diet might be associated with the amelioration of the uremic pruritus severity in hemodialysis patients.