Learning Objectives

Attendees will be able to:

1) Critically review recent peer-reviewed scientific

research

2) Translate current nutrition messaging and research

to empower consumers to make informed decisions

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Common Types of Nutrition Research

• Cell culture/in vitro • Animal Research • Descriptive Epidemiology • Analytic Epidemiology • Experimental/Clinical Human

Research

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Descriptive Epidemiology

• Ecological studies

• Case series

• Case-control studies

• Cross-sectional surveys

• Surveillance systems

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Descriptive Epidemiology

• Suggests associations between diet and disease

• Key sources for hypotheses that can be tested by

analytic research, but do not establish cause and

effect

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Today’s Focus: Ecological Research

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Study Description

• Ecological study

• Evaluated relationship between high fructose corn

syrup availability and prevalence of type 2 diabetes in

adults for 43 countries

• Detected 20% higher diabetes prevalence in countries

with higher HFCS availability

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Study Description (cont.)

• High fructose corn syrup availability • Diabetes prevalence from two sources • Obtained data on total sugars, other

sweeteners, BMI, fasting glucose, dietary energy, cereals

• Data were analyzed by independent t-tests and general linear models with and without adjustments for BMI as well as population and gross domestic product

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• Countries using HFCS were defined by per capita availability of >0.5 kg

• Higher prevalence of diabetes was detected after controlling for BMI, total population and gross domestic product (7.7% vs. 6.4% IDF and 8.2% vs. 6.9% GBMRF)

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6.9%

7.1%

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6.9%

7.4%

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Taiwan??

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Problems with this and other Ecological Studies

• Ecological fallacy-occurs when relationships which

exist for groups are assumed to also be true for

individuals

• Biases that can occur if ascertainment of disease or

exposure, or both, differs from one place to another

• Lack of allowances for potential confounding effects

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3 “Be”s for Deciphering Nutritional Epidemiology

• Be cautious of news headlines

• Be aware of epidemiological research design issues

• can’t determine “cause and effect”

• measuring food/food component intake is difficult

• often detect negative effects only at the extremes of intake

• results in one group (obese, diabetic, metabolic syndrome, etc.) wouldn’t necessarily be the same in others

• Be willing to request the full article from the researchers

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Questions? • For more information:

– Visit booth #1813 to speak with Mark Kern, PhD, RD, CSSD and Neva Cochran, MS, RDN, LD about this expo briefing and learn more about scientific research on sugars and nutritive sweeteners

– Go to http://sweetenerstudies.com/dietitian for more published research and study reviews, including today’s article

– Contact Dr. Kern at kern@mail.sdsu.edu

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