Peer Review History
Original SubmissionOctober 13, 2023 |
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PONE-D-23-33232Association between Dietary Inflammatory Index and NT-proBNP Levels in US adults: A Cross-Sectional AnalysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chi, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR: All issues highlighted by reviewers are required in order to support the conclusions. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 22 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Vincenzo Lionetti, M.D., PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 2. Your ethics statement should only appear in the Methods section of your manuscript. If your ethics statement is written in any section besides the Methods, please delete it from any other section. 3. Please include a separate caption for each figure in your manuscript. 4. Please ensure that you refer to Figure 1 & 3 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ********** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: There are several critical comments for the authors to address: 1. Why was NT-proBNP chosen as the molecule to study? How does it compare to other potential biomarkers? Are there better indicators? 2. Did the authors look at CAD specifically in its analysis? 3. In the Discussion on page 9, the authors have mistaken gender to be synonymous with sex. This is incorrect. You did not monitor gender. You only collected data on sex. Please correct this paragraph on page 9. 4. The authors found no relationship to CVD but continue to discuss it on the first paragraph on page 10. This could be removed as speculation and is not supported statistically by their own data. 5. I agree whole-heartedly with the limitations identified in lines 312 to 320. They are important, especially the reliability of dietary recalls. Simply identifying the limitations does not remove any of the detrimental significance of these limitations. The authors may want to rebut or at least try to address these limitations in some manner to counter their importance. Reviewer #2: Large-scale identification of possible relationships between pro- or anti-inflammatory properties of diets and cardiovascular (CV) health, and their understanding, can be of great value for CV risk stratification and to guide prevention strategies by focusing on modifiable risk factors. And for these reasons, this work seems promising as it explores on over ten thousand US adults associations between the DII and the NT-proBNP biomarker, accounting for several confounders and stratifying the diet-related CV risks by age groups, gender, ethnicity and chronic diseases. A number of concerns limits my enthusiasm in endorsing this work, which appears to be a very preliminary version of a publishable article. Major concerns involve many methodological aspects and the logic of analyses; minor concerns involve aspects such as form of writing, contents, organization of contents. MAJOR REVISIONS - In “Study Design” section (Line 64): please specify characteristics of the study participants, specifically: minimum and maximum age; number of subjects in the age groups <50 years, 50-75 years, >75 years, divided by gender and ethnicity; inclusion and exclusion criteria based on NT-proBNP and dietary measurements, lifestyle factors, health status and pregnancy status. Reference to Figure 1 is missing in the main text. - In “Assessment of NT-proBNP” section (Line 83): measurements of NT-proBNP in serum samples were performed after minimum 14 years, this may raise concerns about storage practices and samples integrity. Please specify samples storage method and conditions. Then, indicate the step-by-step protocol for dosing NT-proBNP. - In “Assessment of Dietary Inflammatory Index” section (Line 91): starting from the 24-hour dietary recall survey, describe in details data gathering, encoding and refinement process. Please, list all the 27 dietary factors used in the DII and describe how it was possible to calculate their intakes (frequencies of consumption, portions, reference nutritional databases). Describe how the DII is structured and the criteria for which the DII score was obtained. Describe the clinical significance of the division into quartiles of DII scores. - Section that should be added: - “Assessment of Food Groups and Nutrients Intake” section: it is important to present information on individual food groups, foods and nutrients intake of the study participants, to evaluate dietary intake contributions on relationships between DII and NT-proBNP levels. Please, add related analyses in the “Stratified Analysis” section (Line 201). - In “Baseline Characteristics of Patients” section (Line 158): p-values in Table 1 refer to inter-quartile differences, therefore the statements from line 164 to 167 require a post-hoc analysis to be statistically supported. From line 162 to 164 ("In patients with...pg/mL.") the sentences refer to Table 2 and not to Table 1. In line 168 the p-value related to C-reactive protein corresponds to <0.001 and not to <0.01 (as shown in Table 2). Tables 1 and 2 present chaotic content and poor captions. Please implement them to ensure a better understanding of the tables. - In “Relationships of Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) and NT-proBNP” section (Line 173): in lines 175 and 177 the reported p-value is wrong (see Table 3). Concerning the sentence in lines 191-192, see the comment related to lines 164-167. - In “Discussion” chapter (Line 217): please, enrich discussion contents by adding a greater number of comparisons between results obtained in your study and those from other studies. Moreover, deepen the discussion regarding negative results obtained. Deepen the influence of dietary factors constituting the DII on cholesterol, triglycerides and glycohemoglobin serum parameters. MINOR REVISIONS - In “Abstract” (Line 11): in line 17, the statement "multivariable adjusted analyses" is partly correct. Specify that "non-adjusted analysis" was also performed. - In “Introduction” chapter (Line 33): from lines 34 to 37 the content is extremely generic and does not provide useful information for understanding the study. From lines 39 to 43 concepts are expressed in a redundant way. Please, add other useful indexes to evaluate associations between the effects of dietary patterns and cardiovascular health. In Lines 50-51, please specify what is meant by "changes in ventricular wall stress". From line 57 to 60 references are missing. - In “Methods” and “Results” chapters (Line 63/156): choose the term "gender" instead of "sex" in the main text and tables; choose between the terms "unadjusted model" or "crude model" and use the one chosen all the time. Review the table titles. - In “Discussion” chapter (Line 217): choose the terms "men" and "women" instead of "males" and "females". From line 271 to 273 and from line 278 to 280 references are missing. - Please go through correction of all typos. ********** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ********** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
Revision 1 |
PONE-D-23-33232R1Association between Dietary Inflammatory Index and NT-proBNP Levels in US adults: A Cross-Sectional AnalysisPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chi, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ============================== ACADEMIC EDITOR: All issues raised by expert reviewer are required. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by May 03 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Vincenzo Lionetti, M.D., PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ********** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: No ********** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: No ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: It is very appreciable to observe that the authors have done a substantial job, where the new version of the manuscript is much improved compared to the previous one and adequate to the comments raised by the reviewers. However, there are still a number of major and minor critical aspects that authors must address, to make this work more rigorous, transparent, easier to understand and less chaotic. MAJOR REVISIONS: - Please explain how you were able to detect in non-HF patients (Table 1) levels of NT-proBNP from 95.06±7 pg/dL (so 0,95 pg/mL) to 129.91±7.04 pg/dL (so 1.2 pg/mL) if you report that minimum detection level is set at 5 pg/mL. Please, check unit of measure for NT-proBNP in HF subjects. Please also be aware that the unit of measure you report for HDL and LDL levels in Table 1 is wrong; not being aware of their meaning would be a serious concern for publication. - Student's t test and chi-square test for comparing less than 3 groups at a time. I therefore believe that for the analyzes reported in Table 1 and Table 2 for non-HF subjects, one-way ANOVA (normally distributed data) or Kruskal-Wallis (non-normally distributed data) would be appropriate. Then, please use these suggested tests in your analyses. - Please, in partial correlation analyses use Spearman’s coefficient for non-normally distributed data or Pearson’s coefficient for normally distributed data. - Please, in your adjusted analyses use only those variables underlying significant interactions (e.g, age, gender, CKD, hypertension, diabetes). MINOR REVISIONS: - Abstract: “Stratified analyses were then conducted to examine the associations within specific subgroups to identify differential effects of the DII on NT-proBNP levels across diverse populations.”; “In individuals without heart failure, a unit increase in the DII was significantly associated with an increase in NT-proBNP levels.”; “Significant interactions were observed in subgroup analyses by age, gender, hypertension, and diabetes.” Please, for a quick understanding by riders, explicitly indicate what these specific subgroups and diverse populations, and a unit increase in the DII, and subgroups analyses are. - It is reported in the abstract and in line 62 that your analyses refer to data from the NHANES and collected in 1999-2002; however, in lines 77 and 88 you indicate data from three NHANES cycles 1999-2004; so, please indicate the start/end date (year) of each cycle. - Please add data indicating the quantification (mean and SD) of each dietary component of the DII, and DII scores (continuous data) and DII quartiles, for HF and non-HF subjects. - Please indicate maximum and minimum values of the DII score; and indicate the inflammation effect for each dietary component. - Please change the section title “Assessment of covariates” in “Assessment of study participants’ characteristics”; please delete the first sentence in lines 119-120. - Please, explain the reasons of using DII quartiles instead of DII continuous data in your analyses. Please, indicate that by using DII continuous data it did not produce significant results, or add these results. Please, indicate that using DII quartiles reduced inter-individual variability leading to significant findings. - In line 143-144-145: please, don’t use the term segmented. Also, the cut off for DII quartiles you report are wrong (Q1: DII ≤ 144 0.753; Q2: 0.753 < DII ≤ 2.172; Q3: 2.172 < DII ≤ 3.193; Q4: DII 3.193). Please don’t use the term variances. - In line 156: BMI categories cut-off are usually different from those you report, please specify the reason why of these cut-offs you chose. - Please add in Table 1 result from comparison between DII scores and NT-proBNP levels (continuous data) also for non-HF subjects. -In lines 180-181: “stratification by DII scores revealed distinct quartiles.” Please, be explain the term distinct. - In line 189: “NT-proBNP level was significantly elevated”; please indicate that are elevated in comparison to NT-proBNP in non-HF subjects, and provide references for this statement. -In lines 210-212: your statement sounds speculative, only results from model I indicate significance. - Please indicate in all tables the specific statistical test used, and results as mean and SD were appropriate. - In line 265: “incorporating 27 dietary factors and three covariates”; please, indicate why you use those covariates, maybe you would meant you used covariates of model I. - In line 272: please change your sentence in “Out of n=27 dietary variables constituting the DII scores, n=17 show an interaction to NT-proBNP levels in whole population, such as: protein, etc.”. - In line 290: use “in preserving cardiovascular health” instead of management; then, specify from where is obtained the value of 14.32 pg/dL. - In line 49; 90-91; 111; 116 reference is missing. - In line 52: “The DII objective” is correct and “The DII’s objective” is not; in line 142: “the study complex” is correct and “the study’s complex” is not; in line 188: “Table 2 highlights” is correct and “Table 2 highlighted” is not. - In lines 77-78: “After excluding participants for various reasons”; please, be specific and don’t use any form such as “various reasons”. - In line 90: who is Dr. Roche Diagnostics? - Please go throughout all typos, and revise all tables and figures in an intelligible fashion. ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No ********** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
Revision 2 |
Association between Dietary Inflammatory Index and NT-proBNP Levels in US adults: A Cross-Sectional Analysis PONE-D-23-33232R2 Dear Dr. Zhou, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Vincenzo Lionetti, M.D., PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ********** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: After the last revision you made, I belive your manuscript could suit for publication. Just, add on table and figure captions the type of statistical analyses used. ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No ********** |
Formally Accepted |
PONE-D-23-33232R2 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Zhou, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, if your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at customercare@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Prof. Vincenzo Lionetti Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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