Title: The association between plant-based diet indices and risk of mortality in patients with
cirrhosis: a cohort Study
Version: 1 Date: 14 Sep 2024
Reviewer:  Yi-Chuan Yu
Reviewer's report:
The authors seek to investigate the relationship between plant-based diet indices and the risk
of mortality in an Iranian population. Overall, the methods section should be revised heavily to
improve its clarity and comprehensiveness. My specific comments are listed below.
1. Is 3955 the total person-month follow-up or the average follow-up time? Also, it will be more
intuitive to use person-year instead of person-month.
2. In the following statement: “ranked it as the 15th leading contributor to DALYs worldwide”,
what is the full name for “DAILY”?
3. The following statement: “The fact that some plant foods such as refined grains and drinks
sweetened with sugar have adverse effects on health”. Could the authors please clarify does
this means that the vegetarian diet score only includes refined grains and sugar drinks as
“vegetarian”?
4. How are the positive values and negative assigned to each of the food items? Please elaborate
on this in the introduction. For example, is -2 unhealthier than -1? What are the determinants
for -2 scored foods and -1 scored foods?
5. How can cirrhosis cases be identified?
6. What are the sample sizes for the excluded individuals? A detailed layout of why these
exclusion criteria should be included. In addition, please be specific on each of the exclusion
criteria. For example, what are considered to be various malignancies?
7. Are the questionnaires collected every year?
8. This is to echo the previous point, how scores are determined when assigning values to each
of the food items? Is the score developed in Iran? If not, the effect of these foods on human
health could be different across different populations.
9. Is there any information related to liver infection included or not (HBV, HCV)?
10. Have the authors tested the assumption of the Cox model?
Title: The association between plant-based diet indices and risk of mortality in patients with
cirrhosis: a cohort Study
Version: 1 Date: 14 Sep 2024
Reviewer:  Yi-Chuan Yu
Reviewer's report:
The authors seek to investigate the relationship between plant-based diet indices and the risk
of mortality in an Iranian population. Overall, the methods section should be revised heavily to
improve its clarity and comprehensiveness. My specific comments are listed below.
1. Is 3955 the total person-month follow-up or the average follow-up time? Also, it will be more
intuitive to use person-year instead of person-month.
2. In the following statement: “ranked it as the 15th leading contributor to DALYs worldwide”,
what is the full name for “DAILY”?
3. The following statement: “The fact that some plant foods such as refined grains and drinks
sweetened with sugar have adverse effects on health”. Could the authors please clarify does
this means that the vegetarian diet score only includes refined grains and sugar drinks as
“vegetarian”?
4. How are the positive values and negative assigned to each of the food items? Please elaborate
on this in the introduction. For example, is -2 unhealthier than -1? What are the determinants
for -2 scored foods and -1 scored foods?
5. How can cirrhosis cases be identified?
6. What are the sample sizes for the excluded individuals? A detailed layout of why these
exclusion criteria should be included. In addition, please be specific on each of the exclusion
criteria. For example, what are considered to be various malignancies?
7. Are the questionnaires collected every year?
8. This is to echo the previous point, how scores are determined when assigning values to each
of the food items? Is the score developed in Iran? If not, the effect of these foods on human
health could be different across different populations.
9. Is there any information related to liver infection included or not (HBV, HCV)?
10. Have the authors tested the assumption of the Cox model?
Please review this paper.
user
Title: The association between plant-based diet indices and risk of mortality in patients with
cirrhosis: a cohort Study
Version: 1 Date: 14 Sep 2024
Reviewer:  Yi-Chuan Yu
Reviewer's report:
The authors seek to investigate the relationship between plant-based diet indices and the risk
of mortality in an Iranian population. Overall, the methods section should be revised heavily to
improve its clarity and comprehensiveness. My specific comments are listed below.
1. Is 3955 the total person-month follow-up or the average follow-up time? Also, it will be more
intuitive to use person-year instead of person-month.
2. In the following statement: “ranked it as the 15th leading contributor to DALYs worldwide”,
what is the full name for “DAILY”?
3. The following statement: “The fact that some plant foods such as refined grains and drinks
sweetened with sugar have adverse effects on health”. Could the authors please clarify does
this means that the vegetarian diet score only includes refined grains and sugar drinks as
“vegetarian”?
4. How are the positive values and negative assigned to each of the food items? Please elaborate
on this in the introduction. For example, is -2 unhealthier than -1? What are the determinants
for -2 scored foods and -1 scored foods?
5. How can cirrhosis cases be identified?
6. What are the sample sizes for the excluded individuals? A detailed layout of why these
exclusion criteria should be included. In addition, please be specific on each of the exclusion
criteria. For example, what are considered to be various malignancies?
7. Are the questionnaires collected every year?
8. This is to echo the previous point, how scores are determined when assigning values to each
of the food items? Is the score developed in Iran? If not, the effect of these foods on human
health could be different across different populations.
9. Is there any information related to liver infection included or not (HBV, HCV)?
10. Have the authors tested the assumption of the Cox model?
assistant