6-tips diet: a simplified dietary approach in patients with chronic renal disease. A clinical randomized trial.

Background: The beneficial effects of dietary restriction of proteins in chronic kidney disease are widely recognized; however, poor compliance to prescribed low-protein diets (LPD) may limit their effectiveness. To help patients to adhere to the dietary prescriptions, interventions as education programmes and dietary counselling are critical, but it is also important to develop simple and attractive approaches to the LPD, especially when dietitians are not available. Therefore, we elaborated a simplified and easy to manage dietary approach consisting of 6 tips (6-tip diet, 6-TD) which could replace the standard, non-individualized LPD in Nephrology Units where dietary counselling is not available; hence, our working hypothesis was to evaluate the effects of such diet vs a standard moderately protein-restricted diet on metabolic parameters and patients' adherence.