Aplicação dos métodos de inquérito aumentar na avaliação da ingestão de cálcio em estudos epidemiológicos

Abstract

The calcium role in t he pathogenesis of severa/ diseases has justified the growing interest about knowledging its assessment, methodologies and the correct interpretation of thederiveddata. Among the available techniques forthecalcium­

-intake eva/uation the food-intake questionary seems the less expensive and the most practical for clinicai and epidemiological purposes. The major goa/ to be pursued in thesekind of studies is the diet-disease relationship therefore the achievement of the average intake for the target group becomes more important than the exactness of each eva/uation per se. ln this sense the way of sampling the target population becomes criticai so it must be carefully considered in their nutritional habits, geographic and socioeconomic aspects. Once the dietary intake data is obtained its conversion to thecorrespondent calcium intake must be based onwe/1-accepted tables of food composition. Thevalidation of the food-intake questionary is usually done against either the three or seven day food register technics. For the calcium intake these three methods have showed similar results on the group-average basis. However is advisable not to compare results from distinct population evaluated by different methodologies. lt Is described that food-frequency questionary (FFQ) usually overestimates the individual-calcium intake whereas the dietary history (DH) underestimates it. The 24-hour recai/ questionary has been demonstrated as satlsfatory and reliable for the dietary-ca/clum assessment ln defined groups of Individuais. The assocíation of this method with other food-habit related methods (FFQ or DH) strengthenes the data va/ldation for clinica/ and epidemiolog/ca/ studíes. However one should keep ln mlnd that themain purpose of these assessments must be a/ways the search for group-a/imentarydeflectlon once thewideíntraindlvidua/varlatlon Is unavoidable.