Presentation given at Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ 2013 Food &Nutrition Conference & Expo™ (FNCE), where Mark Kern, PhD, RD, CSSD, and Neva Cochran, MS, RDN, LD, walk through ways that you can evaluate peer-reviewed scientific research and transform current nutrition messaging into empowering messages for your clients.

2. 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
2

3. Common Types of Nutrition
Research
•
•
•
•
•
Cell culture/in vitro
Animal Research
Descriptive Epidemiology
Analytic Epidemiology
Experimental/Clinical Human
Research
3

4. Descriptive Epidemiology
• Ecological studies
• Case series
• Case-control studies
• Cross-sectional surveys
• Surveillance systems
4

5. 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
5

6. Today’s Focus:
Ecological Research
6

7. 7

8. 8

9. 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
9

10. 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
10

11. • 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)
11

12. 6.9%
7.1%
12

13. 6.9%
7.4%
13

14. 14

15. Taiwan??
15

16. 16

17. 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
17

18. 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
18

19. 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
19