Nutritional Epidemiology

Dietary intake is considered one of the important modifiable risk factors for various chronic diseases including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis. Nutritional epidemiology aims to study the effect of diet on the risks of diseases and thus can lead to better health policy and healthy diet recommendations to improve public health. The contribution of nutritional epidemiology includes dietary assessment, description of nutritional exposure and statistical modeling of the diet-disease relationship to handle measurement error.

The faculty in the Department of Biostatistics have been actively engaged in (1) the NPAAS study, an ancillary biomarker study of Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), funded by NIH/NCI to develop objective biomarkers from serum and urine measurements for various foods, nutrients and dietary patterns and develop calibration equation for self-reported data such as FFQ, 24 hour recalls and 4 day food records to evaluate the diet-disease relationship among WHI cohorts; and (2) two randomized controlled trials funded by National Institute of Aging and by Department of Defense to determine the effect of increasing doses of Vitamin D3 on serum vitamin D levels and to determine the dose that meets 97.5% of the needs of the populations, the Recommended Dietary Allowance. Secondary objectives of the clinical trials were to study the effect of Vitamin D on bone health, physical performance, incidence of falls, and safety outcomes.

Our Research:

• Zheng, C., Nagana Gowda, G.A., Raftery, D., Neuhouser, M.L., Tinker, L.F., Prentice, R.L., Beresford, S.A.A., Zhang, Y., Bettcher, L., Pepin, R., Djukovic, D., Gu, H., Barding, G.A., Song, X., and Lampe, J.W. (2021) Evaluation of potential metabolomics-based biomarkers of protein, carbohydrate and fat intakes using a controlled feeding study. European Journal of Nutrition. doi:10.1007/s00394-021-02577-1
• Smith, L.M., Gallagher, J.C. (2021) Reference range for 24-h urine calcium, calcium/creatinine ratio, and correlations with calcium absorption and serum vitamin D metabolites in normal women. Osteoporosis International 32: 539-547.
• Prentice, R.L., Pettinger, M., Neuhouser, M.L., Raftery, D., Zheng, C., Nagana Gowda, G.A., Huang, Y., Tinker, L.F., Howard, B.V., Manson, J.E., Wallace, R., Mossavar-Rahmani, Y., Johnson, K.C. and Lampe, J.W. (2021) Biomarker-calibrated macronutrient intake and chronic disease risk among postmenopausal women. Journal of Nutrition org/10.1093/jn/nxab091
• Prentice, R.L., Pettinger, M., Neuhouser, M.L., Tinker, L.F., Huang, Y., Zheng, C., Manson, J.E., Mossavar-Rahmani, Y., Anderson, G.L. and Lampe, J.W. (2019). Application of blood concentration biomarkers in nutritional epidemiology: example of carotenoid and tocopherol intake in relation to chronic disease risk. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 109: 1189-1196.
• Smith, L.M. and Gallagher, J.C. (2019) Effect of vitamin D supplementation on total and free 25 hydroxyvitamin D and parathyroid hormone. An analysis of two randomized controlled trials. Journal of Internal Medicine 286: 651-659.
• Smith, L.M., Gallagher, J.C., Kaufmann, M. and Jones, G. (2018) Effect of increasing doses of vitamin D on bone mineral density and serum N-terminal telopeptide in elderly women: a randomized controlled trial. Journal of Internal Medicine 284:685-693.
• Smith, L.M., Gallagher, J.C. and Suiter C. (2017) Medium doses of daily vitamin D decrease falls and higher doses of daily vitamin D3 increase falls: A randomized clinical trial
• Zheng, C., Beresford, S. A., Horn, L.V., Tinker, L.F., Thomson, C.A., Neuhouser, M.L., Di, C., Manson, J.E., Mossavar-Rahmani, Y., Sequin, R., Manini, T., LaCroix, A. Z. and Prentice, R.L. (2014). Simultaneous association of total energy consumption and activity-related energy expenditure with risks of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes among postmenopausal women. American Journal of Epidemiology 180: 526-535.
• Gallagher, J. C., Jindal, P. S., and Smith, L. M. (2014). Vitamin D supplementation in young White and African American women. Journal of Bone and Mineral Research, 29(1), 173-181.
• Gallagher, J. C., Sai, A., Templin, T., and Smith, L. (2012). Dose response to vitamin D supplementation in postmenopausal women: a randomized trial. Annals of Internal Medicine, 156(6), 425-437.