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Related Experiment Videos

Errors in reported dietary intakes. II. Long-term recall.

M L Wu1, A S Whittemore, D L Jung

  • 1Department of Health Research and Policy, Stanford University School of Medicine, CA 94305-5092.

American Journal of Epidemiology
|November 1, 1988
PubMed
Summary

Dietary recall for past cancer risk studies shows significant measurement error. While average nutrient intakes are reproducible, individual recall accuracy is limited, suggesting new study designs are needed.

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Area of Science:

  • Epidemiology
  • Nutrition Science
  • Biostatistics

Background:

  • Case-control studies on diet and cancer often yield inconsistent results.
  • Discrepancies may arise from comparing current dietary habits with past intakes during cancer initiation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess the validity of retrospectively reported past diet and concurrently reported current diet as measures of actual past dietary intake.
  • To investigate the reliability of dietary recall in epidemiological research.

Main Methods:

  • 873 participants completed dietary history questionnaires in 1983, recalling their diet from 1972 and reporting current habits.
  • Retrospective and current dietary recalls were compared with original 1972 dietary data.
  • Analysis of variance was used to partition variation in dietary intakes and body size measures.

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Main Results:

  • Mean recalled nutrient intakes closely matched original 1972 reports, unlike current intakes which were lower.
  • Correlation analysis indicated better agreement between recalled and original intakes than current and original intakes.
  • Interpersonal variation explained only 20-40% of dietary intake variance, with most attributed to reporting error, contrasting with body size measures.

Conclusions:

  • Large random measurement errors in individual dietary intakes likely contribute to inconsistencies in diet-cancer case-control studies.
  • Mean dietary measures are reproducible across populations, but individual recall is problematic.
  • New study designs are needed to overcome limitations in dietary assessment for diet-disease research.