Evaluation of plant sterol intake estimated with the Northern Sweden FFQ

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate plant sterol intake estimated with the eighty-four-item Northern Sweden FFQ against repeated 24 h dietary recalls (24-HDR) as the reference method. Design: Randomly recruited participants from the Västerbotten Intervention Programme (VIP) responded to an FFQ (FFQ1). Over the subsequent 12 months, ten repeated 24-HDR were carried out. After this, a second FFQ (FFQ2) was completed. Setting: Västerbotten county, northern Sweden. Subjects: Ninety-six men and ninety-nine women. Results: The Pearson correlation coefficient for absolute total plant sterol intake estimated with FFQ1 and 24-HDR was 0?58 and 0?55 for the men and women, respectively. Cross-classification of participants into quartiles of absolute plant sterol intake estimated with FFQ1 and 24-HDR showed that 90 % of the men and 83 % of the women were classified into the same or an adjacent quartile. For energy-adjusted plant sterol intake, 71 % of the men and 74 % of the women were classified into the same or an adjacent quartile. The agreement for crossclassification of participants into quartiles between FFQ1 and FFQ2 was good for both absolute and energy-adjusted plant sterol intake. Conclusions: The FFQ is able to capture absolute plant sterol intake to the same extent as other nutrients, and to rank individuals according to both their absolute and energy-adjusted plant sterol intake. The reproducibility of the FFQ was good, suggesting that the method is reliable. This makes it possible to use plant sterol data from the FFQ in large-scale studies of the association between plant sterol intake and disease.

Dairy intake revisited – associations between dairy intake and lifestyle related cardio-metabolic risk factors in a high milk consuming population

“…Total estimated daily intake of energy (excluding energy from alcohol) and nutrients was calculated by weighting reported intake frequencies by food composition provided by the National Food Agency ( https://www.livsmedelsverket.se/en/food-and-content/naringsamnen/livsmedelsdatabasen ). Estimated intake of energy, nutrients, vitamins and minerals was previously validated against repeated 24-h dietary records and biological markers [ 25 – 28 ].…”

Longitudinal 10-year changes in dietary intake and associations with cardio-metabolic risk factors in the Northern Sweden Health and Disease Study

“…For other foods, sex- and age-specific average portion sizes as reported in a validation study in a subset of VIP participants using 24-h recall interviews [10] or as reported by the Swedish Food Agency [12] have been used. In addition to the validation study by 24-h recall interviews [10, 13], the FFQ also has been validated by serum biomarkers [14, 15]. …”

Dietary Intake of Naturally Occurring Plant Sterols Is Related to a Lower Risk of a First Myocardial Infarction in Men but Not in Women in Northern Sweden

“…After validation and calibration with 10 repeated 24-h diet recalls, the 84-question FFQ was concluded to have a validity similar to other FFQs used in prospective cohort studies (27). The FFQ has also been evaluated with regard to the ability to estimate plant sterol intake (28). Calculation of nutrient intake from the FFQ has been described elsewhere (29), as have the criteria for incomplete dietary data (27), including missing responses to >10% of the FFQ questions or one or more missing portion size response.…”

“…The calibration coefficients were calculated by linear regression of the plant sterol intake estimated with repeated 24 h recalls on the plant sterol intake estimated with the 84-item FFQ (28).…”