Dietary guidelines: some issues to consider before initiating revisions

This paper presents two main questions that need to be answered before deciding to revise dietary guidelines: Is there really a need to revise existing guidelines? and How is dietary risk management to be integrated into dietary guidelines? Any group assigned the task of evaluating and possibly revising existing guides must answer these questions. It is also critically important to specify the exact target group and purpose for any dietary guideline since the questions need to be answered in context. This paper addresses some of the implications of the recent report on Dietary Reference Intakes for macronutrients in its venture into the area of risk management. A major conclusion of the paper is that nutrition has entered a new era and that henceforth, as never before, risk management, the assessments of likelihood of benefit and risks of harm-as well as costs human and financial of our actions-and recommendations must take a very prominent position in our work. This is not a role for which most nutritionists are prepared and hence it must be seen as a major challenge in the preparation of food guides in the future.