Question

You are assigned to work on a research study examining the effects of a new vitamin D supplement on bone mineral density in post menopausal women. The study duration is 2 months, your sample size is n=100, and you have a large team of researchers. Please justify your answers to the following questions:

1) Which dietary intake assessment method(s) would you use to assess their diet?

2) Which nutritional analysis software would you use?

3) How would you assess the subjects’ nutritional status (aside from dietary intake assessment)?

Answer 1

1.The most common method used to assess the diet

• Diet record:This is maintained over 3 consequetive days and assessed
• 24 hour recall:This is measured over the last 24 hours and assessment is done.
• Food Frequency Questionnaire :This is done over a periodof time from months to year

This makes the people in the research to report about the type,frequencies, quantity ,cooking practices, amount of calories etc., over the given period of time (2 months).Using this method will enable the researchers to assess their diet

2.There are variety of nutritional analysis software available

The Nutritional Data System for Research can be used to assess the dietary intake of the people involved in research

3.The subject's nutritional status can be assessed in the following way apart from dietary assessment are

• Gender:the quantity of the food varies according to the gender of individual
• Age:The assessment of this is necessary, intake varies in view of age
• Lifestyle:Assessing the type of life (sedentary, moderate, heavy workers) knows to identify the required dietary intake whether it is sufficientlly taken or not,where and how it is consumed
• Medication history:Assessing this enables to know the drug interactions with the food the subject consume
• Medical history :This forms a great part in the food the subject consume depending upon their disease conditions they limit or increase the nutritional requirements