Abstract
Identification of new biomarkers of food and nutrient intake has developed fast over the past two decades and could potentially provide important new tools for compliance monitoring and dietary intake assessment in nutrition and health science. In recent years, metabolomics has played an important role in identifying a large number of putative biomarkers of food intake (BFIs). However, the large body of scientific literature on potential BFIs outside the metabolomics area should also be taken into account. In particular, we believe that extensive literature reviews should be conducted and that the quality of all suggested biomarkers should be systematically evaluated. In order to cover the literature on BFIs in the most appropriate and consistent manner, there is a need for appropriate guidelines on this topic. These guidelines should build upon guidelines in related areas of science while targeting the special needs of biomarker methodology. This document provides a guideline for conducting an extensive literature search on BFIs, which will provide the basis to systematically validate BFIs. This procedure will help to prioritize future work on the identification of new potential biomarkers and on validating these as well as other biomarker candidates, thereby providing better tools for future studies in nutrition and health.
Highlights
The importance of diet for improving health and preventing chronic disease is widely recognized
We propose a strategy to carry out an extensive literature search to identify putative and candidate BFIs, which represents the first part of a guideline for conducting a systematic BFI review, the biomarker of food intake review (BFIRev) methodology (Fig. 1)
The review question relates to specific intake biomarkers of foods or food groups
Summary
The importance of diet for improving health and preventing chronic disease is widely recognized. We propose a strategy to carry out an extensive literature search to identify putative and candidate BFIs, which represents the first part of a guideline for conducting a systematic BFI review, the BFIRev methodology (Fig. 1). Structure of the guideline for a systematic BFI review The initial step of the present work involved identifying the most important food groups to be reviewed for relevant BFIs. In order to obtain good coverage of the food intake in different population groups within Europe, a list of nine food groups was initially identified by the FoodBAll partners. Our methodology has been designed to obtain the most extensive coverage of relevant studies on the discovery and/or application of BFIs in nutritional studies, with a structured and reproducible strategy It will share the framework of systematic reviews for paper searches, screening, and selections (steps 1–4).
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