Nutrition - Answers The study of the nutrients and other biologically active compounds in foods and the
body. Sometimes also the study of human behaviours related to foods
6 major classes of nutrients - Answers carbs, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, water
Macronutrients - Answers carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. Energy yielding nutrients
Micronutrients - Answers vitamins and minerals needed in small amounts
methods of assessing nutritional status - Answers Persons diet, anthropometric measures, physical
examination, lab test, food diary, diet history, 24 hour food recall, food frequency
Persons diet - Answers history recorded including medical history and socioeconomic history
anthropometric measurements - Answers Measurements or estimates of physical aspects of the body
such as height, weight, circumferences, and body composition.
physical examination - Answers hair, eyes, skin, tongue, fingernails, and posture. provides evidence of
deficiencies, toxicity status and imbalances
lab tests - Answers taking samples of urine, or blood and analyzing them. Can detect early stages of
malnutrition that is not obvious. Cannot tell if it is dietary related
diet history - Answers to assess an individuals eating habits or usual food intake. A diet history can
reveal socioeconomic and cultural influences, food intolerances, food likes and dislikes, seasonal
variation in intakes appetite and taste changes, physical disabilities
food diary - Answers Individual keeps diary with detailed information about the foods eaten (amount
and method of preparation)
24 hour recall - Answers listing the types, amounts, and preparation of all foods eaten in the past 24
hours. Commonly used in research study to determine typical food and nutrients intake
It is not a practical tool for assessing an individual's diet to determine potential nutritional deficiencies
food frequency - Answers Widely used in epidemiological studies
studies track the diet consumption of a large group of people
Includes how often a particular food or type of food is consumed during a specified period of
time,day and week
Typical question for food frequency is "how often you consume broccoli?
,Uses of Food Composition Databases - Answers 1. Determining the amount of nutrients a person or
groups of people are consuming
2. Identify foods which tend to be high or low in specific nutrients
Limitations of food composition databases - Answers -Several nutrients are not included in food
composition tables
fatty acids and trace minerals such as iodine
-Not all foods have been tested for all nutrients, so many have missing values
many fast foods are missing Vitamin B and minerals
-The calculated amount of a nutrient in a given food should not be assumed to be completely
absorbed by the body; certain factors can enhance or inhibit the absorption of nutrients
-Mixed dishes, such as soups, stews, and casseroles, may vary widely in nutrient composition
-Canadian and American have different food analysis especially for vitamin A and D and laos for
iron in breakfast cereals
intervention studies - Answers Randomized Control Trial (RCT)
-2 groups are involved are intervention groups and controlled groups
-Placebo effect: giving a substance to people and they feel better when the substance giving to the
participants is fake
Test groups must be large enough to reduce effect of random chance influences
Help prevent bias2 Groups are compared at start to make sure they are similar with respect to study
Double Blind study
Both patient and investigator are blind to weather subjects are receiving an active treatment
Uncontrolled study:without inclusion of controlled group much less reliable
Can be carried out on healthy subjects with aim of preventing disease on sick people to test a treatment.
This type of intervention study is known as clinical study cause and effect relationship
anecdotal evidence - Answers Simple and least reliable avenue for studying the role of diet in disease.
The investigator makes
inferences from the experiences of one or more individuals CASE STUDY.
,-This evidence can lead to a good conclusion because there in cases where there are several
reports of unusual conditions
-*(same as above) Anecdotal evidence can lead to a reliable conclusion because there are in
cases where they are many similar reports describing an unusual condition
advantages and disadvantages of anecdotal evidence - Answers Advantage: is that completely new and
previously unsuspected relationships can be discovered
side effects from new drugs, for example are often uncovered when many reports are based on
individual patients are collated and distinctive pattern emerges
-Disadvantages: inherent unreliability; all types of errors can occur
First there is chance
Bias in the observation as a result of the power of suggestion, people are often unreliable in
describing their symptoms, particularly in the case of such symptoms as headaches and vague
pains
Further study, seldom the basis for firm conclusions
Epidemiology - Answers The study of the incidence and distribution of diseases, and of their control and
prevention.
Researchers observe what they do and whether they develop diseases
4 types of epidemiological studies - Answers population, historical, case control, cohort
population study - Answers Mediterranean diet; found this way
Population studies compare disease patterns with various factors, including food
consumption on a country-wide basis
Errors in data and cofounding variables
Confounding variables occur with the factors under study and may mask the
real cause of the disease.
Quite easy for confounding variables to be the culprit instead of the identified
factor
, The 2 factors are associated does not mean that one caused the other. Only
intervention trials demonstrate causality (or cause and effect)
historical study - Answers Historical studies are useful when there are accurate records available of the
number of people
who have died from of have specific health problems
-Best compared with population studies.
-Have the advantages of being based on large populations and they often involve large or even
massive changes in disease incidence. However, disease stats collected 60 years or more ago can
often be useless.
-Disadvantage is that confounding variables often give rise to spurious relationships. Thus, there
is the ever present danger of guilt by association.
ex: any disease that has increased incidence in the 20th century will be correlated with
any lifestyle factors varied as television, cars, sugar and soft margarine
-association between factors, but it is not definitively conclusive. We can use historical evidence
as one more clue to support a theory
case control study - Answers -recruitment of subjects and data collection are done after the disease has
developed.
2 groups are conducted one is people suffering from the disease of interest and the
other is controlled group free of the disease.
As the data are collected after the disease has developed, case control studies are
sometimes known as retrospective studies
cohort study - Answers also known as the prospective study
-monitors them overtime
subjects are in good health
Keeps track until enough of them develops the disease
-Then compare who got the disease and who didn't