ReviewThe Lancet. Planetary health2020
Defining diet quality: a synthesis of dietary quality metrics and their validity for the double burden of malnutrition.
Review in The Lancet. Planetary health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 119 papers, 9 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
119 citing papers in PubMed, 9 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet and Academic Performance in University Students: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Nutrients · 2026Pooled it
- The effectiveness of digital nudging in improving dietary quality: A systematic review of randomized controlled trials.BMC public health · 2025Pooled it
- Effective dietary interventions during pregnancy: a systematic review and meta-analysis of behavior change techniques to promote healthy eating.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2025Pooled it
- Gender and sex differences in adherence to a Mediterranean diet and associated factors during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.Frontiers in nutrition · 2024Pooled it
- Vegetable and Fruit Intake Variety and Cardiovascular Health and Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies.Nutrients · 2023Pooled it
- Dietary Patterns and Risk of Lung Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses of Observational Studies.Current nutrition reports · 2023Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Diet Quality and Measures of Sarcopenia in Developing Economies: A Systematic Review.Nutrients · 2022Pooled it
- The effect of diet quality on the risk of developing gestational diabetes mellitus: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2022Pooled it
- Causal Forests in Practice: Lessons on Detecting Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Healthy Food Subsidy Program in Canada.The Journal of nutrition · 2026Trial
- Impact of a whole food, plant-based diet on LDL-cholesterol and cardiovascular risk factors in adults with heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia: a randomized, two-period, two-treatment, crossover, fully controlled feeding trial.Nature communications · 2026Trial
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- Association between diet quality and overweight or obesity among adults with type 2 diabetes at Debre Markos Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia.Obesity pillars · 2026Article
- Scoping Review of Dietary Quality Indices: Heterogeneity of Definitions and Health Associations among Adults.Nutrition reviews · 2026Article
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- Neighbourhood deprivation and diet quality among a nationally representative sample of adults in Canada: an intersectional investigation.Public health nutrition · 2026Article
- Article
- Youth lead current dietary emissions while seniors increasingly drive total emission growth.Nature food · 2026Article
- Having Their Cake and Eating it Too: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study on the Dietary Behaviours of Family Carers of Persons With Dementia.Dementia (London, England) · 2026Article
59 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Achieving most of the UN Sustainable Development Goals requires a strong focus on addressing the double burden of malnutrition, which includes both diet-related maternal and child health (MCH) and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Although, the most optimal dietary metric for assessing malnutrition remains unclear. Our aim was to review available global dietary quality metrics (hereafter referred to as dietary metrics) and evidence for their validity to assess MCH and NCD outcomes, both separately and together. A systematic search of PubMed was done to identify meta-analyses or narrative reviews evaluating validity of diet metrics in relation to nutrient adequacy or health outcomes. We identified seven dietary metrics aiming to address MCH and 12 for NCDs, no dietary metrics addressed both together. Four NCD dietary metrics (Mediterranean Diet Score, Alternative Healthy Eating Index, Healthy Eating Index, and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) had convincing evidence of protective associations with specific NCD outcomes, mainly mortality, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and total cancer. The remaining NCD dietary metrics and all MCH dietary metrics were not convincingly validated against MCH or NCD health outcomes. None of the dietary metrics had been validated against both MCH and NCD outcomes. These findings highlight major gaps in assessing and addressing diet to achieve global targets and effective policy action.
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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.