MEDINA: Mediterranean Dietary Intervention Study in Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) patients

Mediterranean Dietary Intervention versus standard diet. This involves randomizing patients to either a Mediterranean Diet intervention arm versus a standard diet (low fat, moderate Carbohydrate) intervention. An Accredited Practicing Dietitian (APD) will provide a dietary consult for intervention patients to follow a Med Diet protocol or patients following a standard protocol (low fat, Australian Guide to Healthy Eating). A food hamper representing typical Mediterranean Diet foods (for example olive oil, nuts, natural Greek yoghurt, legumes) will be provided to the intervention group and a supermarket voucher will be provided for the standard group to purchase low fat, moderate carbohydrate food products to achieve the dietary goals. These will be provided at baseline, 6 weeks and 12 weeks. Meal plans and recipe books are all provided at baseline to the relevant diet group. The intervention will be run over a 12 week period with a further 6 and 12month follow up to assess duration of effect and feasibility of sustaining the diet. The dietary intervention and standard diet consults will be delivered by an APD through a face-to-face consultation initially and face-to-face consultations at mid-intervention (6 weeks) and post-intervention timepoints. There are regular phone call reviews to check dietary compliance at weeks 2, 4 and 9. A dietitian will administer the intervention and to monitor adherence food diaries, food frequency questionnaire, plasma fatty acids and urinary hydroxytyrosol will be used as measures for compliance.