Nutritional Epidemiology

Abstract This book is about the complex relationships between diet and risks of important diseases, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease. The book starts with an overview of research strategies in nutritional epidemiology—still a relatively new discipline that combines the vast knowledge compiled by nutritionists during this century with the methodologies developed by epidemiologists to study the determinants of diseases with multiple etiologies and long latent periods. A major section is devoted to the methods of dietary assessment using data on food intake, biochemical indicators of diet, and measures of body composition and size. The reproducibility and validity of each approach and the implications of measurement error are considered in detail. The analysis, presentation, and interpretation of data from epidemiologic studies of diet and disease are explored in depth. Particular attention is paid to the important influence of total energy intake on findings in such studies. To illustrate methodological issues in nutritional epidemiology, the relationships of dietary factors to the incidence of lung and breast cancer, heart disease, and birth defects are examined in depth. This new edition, in addition to updating existing chapters, includes new chapters on assessment of physical activity, nutrition, and genetic epidemic ology, and the role of nutritional epidemiology in policy.