Diet is an important risk factor for many chronic diseases, and in combination with other lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol consumption and physical activity, it can contribute to an up to four-fold difference in mortality (approximately 14 years) between extremes of behaviour [1]. The field of Nutritional Epidemiology investigates association between diet and (chronic) diseases, and findings are often used to give advice to the public. However, Nutritional Epidemiology relies on accurate dietary information to investigate these associations, and it is difficult to obtain unbiased dietary information, in particular since most dietary assessment methods rely to some extend on self-reporting and are thus prone to systematic bias.
Alternative dietary assessment methods use for example nutritional biomarkers to obtain more objective, unbiased dietary information. We develop alternative assessment methods and explore how they can be used to investigate associations between diet and disease and ultimately provide the public with more reliable information.
Details about dietary assessment methods can be found for
example at the MRC
Last modified: Sun Mar 11 17:12:09 GMT 2012