J Am Diet Assoc
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To determine whether a very low-fat diet (<15% of energy intake) consumed ad libitum during an 8-month period can achieve weight loss of 5% to 10% of initial body weight while still providing adequate intakes of other essential nutrients. ⋯ This study demonstrates that adherence to a very low-fat diet consumed ad libitum causes weight loss in the 5% to 10% range and a reduction of body fat. These reductions, along with the observed decreases in fat intake, are associated with improved health outcomes. Because of the decreased vitamin E and n-3 fatty acid intake, emphasis on foods high in these nutrients may need to be encouraged for those consuming a very low-fat diet.
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Nutrition and Your Health: Dietary Guidelines for Americans has been issued jointly by the US Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) every five years since 1980. The Dietary Guidelines form the cornerstone of federal nutrition policy and provide the basis for all federal nutrition education activities. Beginning with the 1985 edition, USDA and HHS have appointed a Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee of prominent experts in nutrition and health to review recent advances in scientific and medical knowledge and to recommend revisions of the Dietary Guidelines, if warranted, to the Secretaries of HHS and USDA. ⋯ Nutrition and Your Health: Dietary Guidelines for Americans is based on the best available science. Ultimately, its goal is to promote better health through food choices and physical activity. The Dietary Guidelines have been referred to as a "gold standard" of nutrition advice, amid often confusing messages about nutrition and health.
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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. ⋯ 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.
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Evidence-based medicine has become accepted as the preferred way to develop clinical practice guidelines for nutrition care. The distinction between nutrition care (ie, medical nutrition therapy) and population dietary guidelines is becoming increasingly blurred. ⋯ The identification of various methods that evaluate individual research reports and various systems that specify the strength of the evidence supporting a recommendation/conclusion statement are included within the article. The potential application of these systems for development of national dietary guidelines is introduced.