(Press-News.org) You are what you eat, unless you're not quite sure what you ate.
A new paper by Jinan Banna and Marie Kainoa Fialkowski of the University of Hawai'i at Manoa's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources and Marilyn Townsend of the University of California, Davis' College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences takes a critical look at how faulty self-reporting of the food we eat can lead to incorrect conclusions about whether we are meeting dietary recommendations for certain essential nutrients.
Banna's study is the first to examine how accounting for the problem of misreporting affects nutrient intake estimates in the Hispanic community. Nearly one in three US residents is projected to be Hispanic in 2060.
The paper, "Misreporting of dietary intake affects estimated nutrient intakes in low-income Spanish-speaking women," was recently published in the online version of the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
Researchers interviewed a group of 82 low-income Mexican American women in California about their food intake, and then determined how accurate their reported intake was by comparing it to predicted energy requirements.
Their findings revealed that the plausibility of reporting significantly influenced whether a participant met recommendations for several essential nutrients. Estimated energy, protein, cholesterol, dietary fiber, and vitamin E intakes were significantly higher in plausible reporters—those whose self-reported intake the study authors determined to be the most realistic.
These results support the importance of evaluating plausibility of reported intake when analyzing self-reported dietary data to determine whether a population is meeting recommendations.
"Data that does not reflect actual intake may be used by researchers, policy makers and others to take actions to change eating habits, leading to recommendations that are not based on inaccurate information," Banna warned. "It is important to find ways to ensure that individuals correctly report what they ate so we have a sound basis for drawing conclusions."
One challenge that authors point out is that the traditional Mexican diet—which includes such tasty foods as atole, a corn-based gruel, chilaquiles, a dish composed of tortillas and sauces, and aguas frescas de fruta, homemade fruit-based drinks—includes many items that are not contained on the standard nutrition composition tables.
Future studies might involve examining whether this same phenomenon occurs in other Hispanic subgroups, Banna said.
"It will be important to see how we might prevent this problem of misreporting," she said. "That may mean looking at new ways of collecting information about diet in Hispanics, like asking people to take photographs of the food they eat instead of performing interviews."
INFORMATION:
RESEARCHER CONTACT INFORMATION:
Jinan Banna, PhD, RD – (808) 956-7857, jcbanna@hawaii.edu
University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources
Misreporting of Dietary Intake Affects Estimated Nutrient Intakes in Low-Income Spanish-Speaking Women. Banna, Jinan C. et al. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jand.2014.06.358
A new study by researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) identifies a new signaling pathway that contributes to the development and progression of inflammatory bone erosion, which occurs in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Rheumatoid arthritis is a systemic inflammatory autoimmune disease that affects millions of adults worldwide. Bone erosion in joints is a major cause of disability in RA patients.
The study, titled "RBP-J imposes a requirement for ITAM-mediated costimulation of osteoclastogenesis," was published online in the Journal of Clinical Investigation ...
Philadelphia, PA (October 21, 2014) — Binge drinking in early adulthood is associated with an increased likelihood of high blood pressure in males, while low to moderate alcohol use in early adulthood is associated with a decreased likelihood of hypertension in females. The findings come from a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2014 November 11¬–16 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA.
While studies have found that drinking alcohol can raise blood pressure in adults, little is known about the links between alcohol use ...
When we talk about global carbon fixation –"pumping" carbon out of the atmosphere and fixing it into organic molecules by photosynthesis – proper measurement is key to understanding this process. By some estimates, almost half of the world's organic carbon is fixed by marine organisms called phytoplankton – single-celled photosynthetic organisms that account for less than one percent of the total photosynthetic biomass on Earth.
Dr. Assaf Vardi, a marine microbiologist of the Weizmann Institute's Plant Sciences Department, and Prof. Ilan Koren, a cloud ...
Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed new software that estimates how much farther electric vehicles can drive before needing to recharge. The new technique requires drivers to plug in their destination and automatically pulls in data on a host of variables to predict energy use for the vehicle.
"Electric cars already have range-estimation software, but we believe our approach is more accurate," says Dr. Habiballah Rahimi-Eichi, a postdoctoral researcher at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work.
"Existing technologies estimate remaining ...
Ordinary over the counter painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs purchased from pharmacies may also be effective in the treatment of people suffering of depression.
This is shown by the largest ever meta-analysis that has just been published by a research group from Aarhus University in the American scientific journal JAMA Psychiatry. The meta-analysis is based on 14 international studies with a total 6,262 patients who either suffered from depression or had individual symptoms of depression.
Up to 15 per cent of the Danish population can expect to suffer from depression ...
PHILADELPHIA – (Oct. 21, 2014) – A team of scientists, led by researchers at The Wistar Institute, has identified a possible explanation for why middle-aged adults were hit especially hard by the H1N1 influenza virus during the 2013-2014 influenza season. The findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offer evidence that a new mutation in H1N1 viruses potentially led to more disease in these individuals. Their study suggests that the surveillance community may need to change how they choose viral strains that go into seasonal ...
HUNTSVILLE, TX (10/21/14) -- One out of every five female students experience stalking victimization during their college career, but many of those cases are not reported to police, according to a study by the Crime Victims' Institute (CVI) at Sam Houston State University.
The rate of stalking on college campuses is higher than those experienced by the general public, according to research. Many of the victims fail to report the incidents because they feel the situation was too minor, feared revenge, saw it as a private or personal matter, or thought police would not ...
Russian scientists have developed a theoretical model of quantum memory for light, adapting the concept of a hologram to a quantum system. These findings from Anton Vetlugin and Ivan Sokolov from St. Petersburg State University in Russia are published in a study in EPJD. The authors demonstrate for the first time that it is theoretically possible to retrieve, on demand, a given portion of the stored quantised light signal of a holographic image – set in a given direction in a given position in time sequence. This is done by shaping the control field both in space ...
(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Researchers have created a cellular probe that combines a tarantula toxin with a fluorescent compound to help scientists observe electrical activity in neurons and other cells. The probe binds to a voltage-activated potassium ion channel subtype, lighting up when the channel is turned off and dimming when it is activated.
This is the first time researchers have been able to visually observe these electrical signaling proteins turn on without genetic modification. These visualization tools are prototypes of probes that could some day help ...
Some people suffer incipient dementia as they get older. To make up for this loss, the brain's cognitive reserve is put to the test. Researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela have studied what factors can help to improve this ability and they conclude that having a higher level of vocabulary is one such factor.
'Cognitive reserve' is the name given to the brain's capacity to compensate for the loss of its functions. This reserve cannot be measured directly; rather, it is calculated through indicators believed to increase this capacity.
A research project ...
