Is our dietary advice effective?

Is our dietary advice effective?

The concept of ‘being effective’ or having an effect is very attractive to us all. It is the way we may come to justify our very presence as a profession (Simko & Conklin, 1989; MacDonald, 1990). If, as highly paid professionals, our advice is largely ineffectual then our employment is hard to justify (Ley, 1982). The effectiveness of any advice must be the extent to which it is acted upon by t...

Coffee: advice for our vice?

Evidence • Largest cohort study: 402 260 people in the United States, aged 50 to 71 years, followed for 14 years.1 -Increased coffee consumption was associated with increased mortality, but results were confounded by smoking, inactivity, alcohol consumption, and poor diet. -After adjusting for confounders, coffee drinkers (compared with nondrinkers) had a significant (P < .001) decrease in over...

Dietary advice: foods or nutrients.

There is considerable debate over the content of dietary advice to be given to individuals within the United Kingdom, and most other industrialized countries, and the most effective way of presenting this advice. In the present paper I would like to debate the merits of giving advice in terms of recommendations about nutrients or in terms of foods. In doing this I will not be concerned in detai...

This is dedicated to our former chairman Dr. Mahmoud Rohani

Dietary Advice on Prescription: A novel approach to dietary counseling

This article describes a novel approach to giving dietary advice, which is called "Dietary Advice on Prescription" (DAP; Matordning på Recept [MoR] in Swedish). It is the same principle as prescription on medicine and "Physical Activity on Prescription" (PAP; Fysisk aktivitet på Recept [FaR] in Swedish). The main idea is that a written prescription will strengthen the oral advice and emphasize ...