title: Development of a Publicly Available, Comprehensive Database of Fiber and Health Outcomes: Rationale and Methods.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Dietary fiber is a broad category of compounds historically defined as partially or completely indigestible plant-based carbohydrates and lignin with, more recently, the additional criteria that fibers incorporated into foods as additives should demonstrate functional human health outcomes to receive a fiber classification. Thousands of research studies have been published examining fibers and health outcomes.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  (1) Develop a database listing studies testing fiber and physiological health outcomes identified by experts at the Ninth Vahouny Conference; (2) Use evidence mapping methodology to summarize this body of literature. This paper summarizes the rationale, methodology, and resulting database. The database will help both scientists and policy-makers to evaluate evidence linking specific fibers with physiological health outcomes, and identify missing information.
  
  
  METHODS
  To build this database, we conducted a systematic literature search for human intervention studies published in English from 1946 to May 2015. Our search strategy included a broad definition of fiber search terms, as well as search terms for nine physiological health outcomes identified at the Ninth Vahouny Fiber Symposium. Abstracts were screened using a priori defined eligibility criteria and a low threshold for inclusion to minimize the likelihood of rejecting articles of interest. Publications then were reviewed in full text, applying additional a priori defined exclusion criteria. The database was built and published on the Systematic Review Data Repository (SRDR™), a web-based, publicly available application.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A fiber database was created. This resource will reduce the unnecessary replication of effort in conducting systematic reviews by serving as both a central database archiving PICO (population, intervention, comparator, outcome) data on published studies and as a searchable tool through which this data can be extracted and updated.
authors.affiliation: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Kara A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Livingston
authors.affiliation: Nutrition/Infection Unit, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Mei
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chung
authors.affiliation: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Caleigh M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Sawicki
authors.affiliation: North American Branch of the International Life Sciences Institute, Washington, D.C., United States of America.
authors.forename: Barbara J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Lyle
authors.affiliation: Nutrition/Infection Unit, Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Ding Ding
authors.initials: DD
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Susan B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Roberts
authors.affiliation: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.|Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, Tufts University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.
authors.forename: Nicola M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: McKeown
mesh_terms: D019992:Databases as Topic; D004043:Dietary Fiber / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000378:metabolism / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans