Title: Empirically Derived Dietary Pattern and Odds of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Diseases in
Overweight and Obese Adults: A case-control study
Version: 0 Date: 02 Dec 2021
Reviewer's report:
Thank you very much for submitting this paper to BMC Gastroenterology. Exploring the impact
of diet on NAFLD is crucial. I have few comments for the authors.
- as a convenience sampling method has been used for selecting the patients of this study and
no consecutive patients were considered, it should be highlighted that there might be  selection
biases impacting the analysis.
- Among the eligibility criteria, participants with BMI> 25 were excluded - was it ethnicity-
adjusted cut off? Moreover, do you have any data on lean NAFLD? quality of diet may be
particularly relevant for this subgroup of patients.
- why were patients with Cardiovascular disease excluded from the study?
- please specify what "special diets" are
- it is not clear whether those in the control group had NAFLD or not - if NAFLD is based on
US, so they may have not been NAFLD - why are they followed-up in liver clinic then?
- Finally, as fibrosis is the main predictor factor for these patients, is there any correlation with
non invasive markers of fibrosis such as FIB-4 or LSM?
Title: Empirically Derived Dietary Pattern and Odds of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Diseases in
Overweight and Obese Adults: A case-control study
Version: 0 Date: 02 Dec 2021
Reviewer's report:
Thank you very much for submitting this paper to BMC Gastroenterology. Exploring the impact
of diet on NAFLD is crucial. I have few comments for the authors.
- as a convenience sampling method has been used for selecting the patients of this study and
no consecutive patients were considered, it should be highlighted that there might be  selection
biases impacting the analysis.
- Among the eligibility criteria, participants with BMI> 25 were excluded - was it ethnicity-
adjusted cut off? Moreover, do you have any data on lean NAFLD? quality of diet may be
particularly relevant for this subgroup of patients.
- why were patients with Cardiovascular disease excluded from the study?
- please specify what "special diets" are
- it is not clear whether those in the control group had NAFLD or not - if NAFLD is based on
US, so they may have not been NAFLD - why are they followed-up in liver clinic then?
- Finally, as fibrosis is the main predictor factor for these patients, is there any correlation with
non invasive markers of fibrosis such as FIB-4 or LSM?
Please review this paper.
user
Title: Empirically Derived Dietary Pattern and Odds of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Diseases in
Overweight and Obese Adults: A case-control study
Version: 0 Date: 02 Dec 2021
Reviewer's report:
Thank you very much for submitting this paper to BMC Gastroenterology. Exploring the impact
of diet on NAFLD is crucial. I have few comments for the authors.
- as a convenience sampling method has been used for selecting the patients of this study and
no consecutive patients were considered, it should be highlighted that there might be  selection
biases impacting the analysis.
- Among the eligibility criteria, participants with BMI> 25 were excluded - was it ethnicity-
adjusted cut off? Moreover, do you have any data on lean NAFLD? quality of diet may be
particularly relevant for this subgroup of patients.
- why were patients with Cardiovascular disease excluded from the study?
- please specify what "special diets" are
- it is not clear whether those in the control group had NAFLD or not - if NAFLD is based on
US, so they may have not been NAFLD - why are they followed-up in liver clinic then?
- Finally, as fibrosis is the main predictor factor for these patients, is there any correlation with
non invasive markers of fibrosis such as FIB-4 or LSM?
assistant