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Epidemiology

Design and characterization of dietary assessment in the German National Cohort

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume 73, pages 1480–1491 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background/Objectives

The aim of the study was to describe a novel dietary assessment strategy based on two instruments complemented by information from an external population applied to estimate usual food intake in the large-scale multicenter German National Cohort (GNC). As proof of concept, we applied the assessment strategy to data from a pretest study (2012–2013) to assess the feasibility of the novel assessment strategy.

Subjects/Methods

First, the consumption probability for each individual was modeled using three 24 h food lists (24h-FLs) and frequencies from one food frequency questionnaire (FFQ). Second, daily consumed food amounts were estimated from the representative German National Nutrition Survey II (NVS II) taking the characteristics of the participants into account. Usual food intake was estimated using the product of consumption probability and amounts.

Results

We estimated usual intake of 41 food groups in 318 men and 377 women. The participation proportion was 100, 84.4, and 68.5% for the first, second, and third 24h-FL, respectively. We observed no associations between the probability of participating and lifestyle factors. The estimated distributions of usual food intakes were plausible and total energy was estimated to be 2707 kcal/day for men and 2103 kcal/day for women. The estimated consumption frequencies did not differ substantially between men and women with only few exceptions. The differences in energy intake between men and women were mostly due to differences in estimated daily amounts.

Conclusions

The combination of repeated 24h-FLs, a FFQ, and consumption-day amounts from a reference population represents a user-friendly dietary assessment approach having generated plausible, but not yet validated, food intake values in the pretest study.

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Acknowledgements

This project was conducted as part of the pretest studies of the German National Cohort (GNC, https://nako.de/), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and supported by the Helmholtz Association as well as participating universities and institutes of the Leibniz Association. Additional funding was from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (grant No.: 01EA1410A) through the Diet-Body-Brain Competence Cluster in Nutrition. The German National Nutrition Survey II (NVS II, 2005–2007) was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection.

Author contributions

H Boeing, UN, and JL designed this project; SK, MC, and JC analyzed the data; SK, MC, and H Boeing drafted the first version of the manuscript; SG, KBM, ML, LK, TP, GK, WA, NE, KJ, AK, NO, RK, WL, SaS, and H Brenner were responsible for implementing the procedures and the acquisition of data in each study center including accuracy and integrity of the data; TH was responsible for the acquisition and preparation of the NVS II data; UH had responsibility for programming the web-based dietary questionnaires; all authors critically reviewed and revised the manuscript.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: S Knüppel, M Clemens

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE), Nuthetal, Germany

    Sven Knüppel, Matthias Clemens, Sylvia Gastell & Heiner Boeing

  2. Institute of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Nutritional Epidemiology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Johanna Conrad & Ute Nöthlings

  3. Institute for Prevention and Cancer Epidemiology, Faculty of Medicine and Medical Center, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany

    Karin B. Michels

  4. Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

    Michael Leitzmann

  5. Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology and Health Economics, Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Lilian Krist

  6. Molecular Epidemiology Research Group, Max-Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC), Berlin, Germany

    Tobias Pischon

  7. Department for Epidemiology, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, Germany

    Gerard Krause

  8. Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology - BIPS, Bremen, Germany

    Wolfgang Ahrens

  9. Institute of Statistics, Faculty Mathematics/Computer Science, University Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Wolfgang Ahrens

  10. Institute for Biometry and Epidemiology, Leibniz Institute for Diabetes Research at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Nina Ebert

  11. Institute of Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology (IMIBE), University Hospital Essen, University of Duisburg-Essen, Essen, Germany

    Karl-Heinz Jöckel

  12. Institute of Medical Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Informatics, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany

    Alexander Kluttig

  13. Institute of Medical Biometry and Epidemiology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany

    Nadia Obi

  14. Division of Cancer Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany

    Rudolf Kaaks

  15. Institute of Epidemiology, Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    Wolfgang Lieb

  16. Institute for Community Medicine, University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany

    Sabine Schipf

  17. German Center for Diabetes Research (DZD), Site Greifswald, Germany

    Sabine Schipf

  18. Division of Clinical Epidemiology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany

    Hermann Brenner

  19. Division of Preventive Oncology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and National Center for Tumour Diseases (NCT), Heidelberg, Germany

    Hermann Brenner

  20. German Cancer Consortium, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany

    Hermann Brenner

  21. Department of Nutritional Behaviour, Max Rubner-Institut (MRI), Federal Research Institute of Nutrition and Food, Karlsruhe, Germany

    Thorsten Heuer

  22. Human Study Center, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE), Nuthetal, Germany

    Ulrich Harttig

  23. Clinical Epidemiology, Helmholtz Centre Munich, Neuherberg, Germany

    Jakob Linseisen

  24. Chair of Epidemiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, UNIKA-T, Augsburg, Germany

    Jakob Linseisen

Authors
  1. Sven Knüppel
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  2. Matthias Clemens
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  3. Johanna Conrad
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  4. Sylvia Gastell
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  5. Karin B. Michels
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  6. Michael Leitzmann
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  7. Lilian Krist
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  9. Gerard Krause
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  10. Wolfgang Ahrens
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  11. Nina Ebert
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  13. Alexander Kluttig
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  14. Nadia Obi
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  15. Rudolf Kaaks
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  16. Wolfgang Lieb
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  17. Sabine Schipf
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  18. Hermann Brenner
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  19. Thorsten Heuer
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  20. Ulrich Harttig
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  22. Ute Nöthlings
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  23. Heiner Boeing
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sven Knüppel.

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Knüppel, S., Clemens, M., Conrad, J. et al. Design and characterization of dietary assessment in the German National Cohort. Eur J Clin Nutr 73, 1480–1491 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-018-0383-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-018-0383-8

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