Intra and inter-person sources of variability in fat intake in a feeding trial of 14 men

An impediment to analyzing the effect of nutritional factors on biologic processes or health status in human populations arises from the relatively small dietary differences that exist between individuals in relation to large periodic fluctuations in dietary intake and the imprecision with which diet is normally assessed. We report here on characteristics of dietary variability in a group of 14 young men who successfully completed an intervention study specifically designed to create large differences in fat intake between baseline and two dietary intervention-periods each lasting two months (during which safflower and coconut oil supplements were given). We found that in the second supplemental phase of the intervention inter-person sources of variability were greatly increased over the low-fat baseline values. For proportion of calories as fat it increased to 64.2% of total variance from 21.6% without supplementation; for saturated fatty acids, 47.3% from 17.7%; for polyunsaturated fatty acids, 62.4% from 22.8%; and for the P:S ratio, 71.5% from 21.6%. During the first intervention phase we observed only moderate changes. Reasons for the intervention phase differences in effect, implications for feeding trials designed to look at dietary fat effects, and the need for future studies aimed at clarifying these results are discussed.