The Assessment of Individual Usual Food Intake in Large-Scale Prospective Studies

Abstract

Recent research has called into question the current practice to estimate individual usual food intake in large-scale studies. In such studies, usual food intake has been defined as diet over the past year. The aim of this review is to summarise the concepts of dietary assessment methods providing food intake data over this time period. A conceptualised framework is given to help researchers to understand the more recent developments to improve dietary assessment in large-scale prospective studies, and also to help to spot the gaps that need to be addressed in future methodological research. The conceptual framework illustrates the current options for the assessment of an individual’s food consumption over 1 year. Ideally, a person’s food intake on each day of this year should be assessed. Due to participants’ burden, and organisational and financial constraints, however, the options are limited to directly requesting the long-term average (e.g. food frequency questionnaires), or selecting a few days with detailed food consumption measurements (e.g. 24-hour dietary recalls) or using snapshot techniques (e.g. barcode scanning of purchases). It seems necessary and important to further evaluate the performance of statistical modelling of the individual usual food intake from all available sources. Future dietary assessment might profit from the growing prominence of internet and telecommunication technologies to further enhance the available data on food consumption for each study participant. Research is crucial to investigate the performance of innovative assessment tools. However, the self-reported nature of the data itself will always lead to bias.

Nutritional predictors of depression in a cohort of community-dwelling elderly Canadians: NuAge cohort

“…While the three days of intake were below the number suggested by Nelson et al (1989) to reliably measure individuals usual intakes, they can estimate group's mean intakes within acceptable precision and can allow for comparison of dietary change in those who did and did not become depressed (Basiotis, et al, 1987;Illner, et al, 2010;Nelson, et al, 1989;Palaniappan, et al, 2003;Thompson & Subar, 2013).…”

“…Although the three days of intake may not reliably estimate individual's usual intakes, the dietary method used in this study can be adequately capture mean intakes sufficiently to be classified in the correct tertile of intake, as it is commonly done with food frequency data, and to assess changes in intakes, which were done in our studies (Basiotis, et al, 1987;Illner, Nöthlings, Wagner, Ward, & Boeing, 2010;Nelson, et al, 1989).…”

“…According to studies on the reliability of diet records, the three 24h-recalls can reliably estimate group's mean intakes and allowed for adequate ranking (Basiotis, et al, 1987;Illner, et al, 2010;Palaniappan, et al, 2003;Thompson & Subar, 2013).…”

Short communication: Patterns of dairy consumption in free-living children and adolescents

“…Data regarding free-living dairy consumption were obtained through self-reported records. A major drawback of participant-centered data collection is that such approaches present opportunities for bias and misreporting (Illner et al, 2010). In the present study, 2 methodological approaches were used to explore dairy consumption that we believe to be a novel aspect of the study.…”

Lipid lowering effects of oyster mushroom (Pleurotus ostreatus) in humans

“…It is well established that participants react to recording their diet by changing their usual eating habit. Often data are not convincing (Illner, Nö thlings, Wagner, Ward, & Boeing, 2010). Regarding the high dosage of oyster mushrooms consumed per day, the use of an extract of the oyster mushrooms for intervention appears more appropriate.…”