ReviewMayo Clinic proceedings2015
The Inadmissibility of What We Eat in America and NHANES Dietary Data in Nutrition and Obesity Research and the Scientific Formulation of National Dietary Guidelines.
Review in Mayo Clinic proceedings, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 100 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
100 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Nutrition, Obesity, and Seborrheic Dermatitis: Systematic Review.JMIR dermatology · 2024Pooled it
- Successful weight loss maintenance: A systematic review of weight control registries.Obesity reviews : an official journal of the International Association for the Study of Obesity · 2020Pooled it
- Broad and Inconsistent Muscle Food Classification Is Problematic for Dietary Guidance in the U.S.Nutrients · 2017Pooled it
- Trial
- Trial
- Child and adult snack food intake in response to manipulated pre-packaged snack item quantity/variety and snack box size: a population-based randomized trial.International journal of obesity (2005) · 2019Trial
- Effects of an Ad Libitum Consumed Low-Fat Plant-Based Diet Supplemented with Plant-Based Meal Replacements on Body Composition Indices.BioMed research international · 2017Trial
- Influence of an intervention targeting a reduction in sugary beverage intake on the δ13C sugar intake biomarker in a predominantly obese, health-disparate sample.Public health nutrition · 2017Trial
- Higher-protein diets improve indexes of sleep in energy-restricted overweight and obese adults: results from 2 randomized controlled trials.The American journal of clinical nutrition · 2016Trial
- Effects of Polyphenol, Measured by a Biomarker of Total Polyphenols in Urine, on Cardiovascular Risk Factors After a Long-Term Follow-Up in the PREDIMED Study.Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity · 2016Trial
- Reducing bias and enhancing equity in AI-enabled precision nutrition: addressing measurement error across wearables, multiomics, and dietary data.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Review
- Back to the pre-industrial age? FAOSTAT statistics of food supply reveal radical dietary changes accompanied by declining body height, rising obesity rates, and declining phenotypic IQ in affluent Western countries.Annals of medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Low carbohydrate high fat-diet in real life; A descriptive analysis of cardiovascular risk factors.International journal of cardiology. Cardiovascular risk and prevention · 2025Article
- Predictive equation derived from 6,497 doubly labelled water measurements enables the detection of erroneous self-reported energy intake.Nature food · 2025Article
- Physical activity with or without dietary intervention for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases.Journal of sport and health science · 2024Article
- Determinants of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) exposure among Wisconsin residents.Environmental research · 2024Article
- Linking the relationship between dietary folic acid intake and risk of osteoporosis among middle-aged and older people: A nationwide population-based study.Food science & nutrition · 2024Article
- Gut Microbiome and Metabolic and Immune Indices in Males with or without Evidence of Metabolic Dysregulation.Journal of obesity & metabolic syndrome · 2024Article
- The Validity and Feasibility of Utilizing the Photo-Assisted Dietary Intake Assessment among College Students and Elderly Individuals in China.Nutrients · 2024Article
40 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee was primarily informed by memory-based dietary assessment methods (M-BMs) (eg, interviews and surveys). The reliance on M-BMs to inform dietary policy continues despite decades of unequivocal evidence that M-BM data bear little relation to actual energy and nutrient consumption. Data from M-BMs are defended as valid and valuable despite no empirical support and no examination of the foundational assumptions regarding the validity of human memory and retrospective recall in dietary assessment. We assert that uncritical faith in the validity and value of M-BMs has wasted substantial resources and constitutes the greatest impediment to scientific progress in obesity and nutrition research. Herein, we present evidence that M-BMs are fundamentally and fatally flawed owing to well-established scientific facts and analytic truths. First, the assumption that human memory can provide accurate or precise reproductions of past ingestive behavior is indisputably false. Second, M-BMs require participants to submit to protocols that mimic procedures known to induce false recall. Third, the subjective (ie, not publicly accessible) mental phenomena (ie, memories) from which M-BM data are derived cannot be independently observed, quantified, or falsified; as such, these data are pseudoscientific and inadmissible in scientific research. Fourth, the failure to objectively measure physical activity in analyses renders inferences regarding diet-health relationships equivocal. Given the overwhelming evidence in support of our position, we conclude that M-BM data cannot be used to inform national dietary guidelines and that the continued funding of M-BMs constitutes an unscientific and major misuse of research resources.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.