Human Nutrition Research in the Context of Nutrition Policy and Public Health Nutrition: How Should We Think about Associations between Nutrients and Disease/Health?

Abstract

In the context of maintaining and promoting the health of the population, the current “Dietary Reference Intakes for Japanese” is important for not only avoiding deficiencies and preventing acute-onset excesses, but also disease prevention. For this reason, we comprehensively collected information on the extent to which nutrition-related descriptions such as diet, food, and nutrient intakes are included within the clinical practice guidelines in Japan and the types of descriptions that appear. This revealed that only a few guidelines contain descriptions of quantitative values. In Japan, it is desirable to promote research to clarify the quantitative values that are effective for disease prevention. In addition, since descriptions of common nutrients (such as salt or dietary fiber) were found to be listed for different diseases, it is desirable to establish a system that would enable guideline developers to share information about diet, etc. It is hoped that such research will be further advanced through collaboration among researchers specializing in Dietary Reference Intakes and clinical guidelines, thus improving the level of scientific insight for both.