title: Analysis of dietary patterns in epidemiological research.
abstract: Dietary patterns have been used to summarize diet consumption and to evaluate how diet is associated with diseases in epidemiological research. However, there are many issues surrounding both the use and interpretation of dietary patterns. These issues include how to collect, summarize, and create dietary patterns, as well as how to interpret the results. Because labels are given arbitrarily to dietary patterns to help characterize the pattern in a meaningful way, it is often not clear from the literature as to the consistency of results among studies. Additionally, the utilization of dietary patterns as a tool for public health messages is a topic that is unresolved. These issues are discussed in this paper.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, University of Utah, 375 Chipeta Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108, USA. marty.slattery@hsc.utah.edu
authors.forename: Martha L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Slattery
mesh_terms: D004032:Diet / Q000009:adverse effects*; D015340:Epidemiologic Research Design; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D006801:Humans; D009749:Nutrition Surveys; D009752:Nutritional Status; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D009626:Terminology as Topic