Securing Transparency And Reproducibility in studies of Nutritional interventions (STAR-Nut)
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Botnar Research Centre
Abstract
Summary
Medical research aims to improve people's health. However, it has been suggested that up to 85% of all medical research cannot contribute to our knowledge or be used to improve healthcare practices because it is designed badly, never published, published after a long time, published with insufficient details, or published with only some of the results.
The medical research community has investigated these problems over the past decade and funders, journals, and policymakers, among other research users, have proposed and supported initiatives and tools to help researchers conduct and publish their studies well enough so that they can fully contribute to our understanding of health and healthcare.
Some of these tools are reporting guidelines. Researchers use these simple checklists when writing a journal article to remember key information they need to include in their manuscripts, so readers can understand the methods used or reproduce the study.
There are reporting guidelines for many study designs and clinical areas. Researchers check the quality of papers to assess whether their field is generally good at writing them. If they find that the papers routinely do not mention important information, they might work with experts to create a new reporting guideline. However, they usually do not check whether adequate guidance already exists, or whether the problem is not the lack of guidance but the lack of education or awareness about that guidance.
Nutrition science is one area of research that constantly faces controversy. Associations between nutritional factors and health-related outcomes are difficult to measure. A single food can contain several nutrients, and they interact with each other in our body, making it difficult to work out each component's effect. With such complexity, it is vital that nutrition science studies are reported clearly and completely so that their methods can be easily understood and their findings used sensibly - but, unfortunately, the suggestion is that these papers are not well-reported.
We are consolidating reporting guidance for studies of nutritional interventions.
Today, all trials, including those on nutritional interventions, must be registered before they begin. Based on our background work to map the landscape of nutritional interventions' research and how well it is reported, we will survey nutrition scientists and other users of nutritional interventions' research to discuss whether nutrition science needs its own reporting guidelines. If we find that reporting is poor but a new guideline isn't the answer, we'll also discuss the best way to get existing guidance to researchers and help them to improve the reporting of their studies.
Our map of nutritional research today will be useful for researchers and funders, to help them plan and conduct overdue nutritional research. Our final recommendations - for either a new reporting guideline or how to improve the use of existing guidance - will help ensure studies of nutritional interventions are better reported so their methods and results can be more easily understood and used.
Reporting research appropriately is an essential component of the research cycle, and therefore an essential component of the research methods. Better papers today will help ensure better-designed studies tomorrow, faster scientific advances in the area of nutritional interventions, and better use of robust scientific evidence for the benefit of patients and the general public.
Medical research aims to improve people's health. However, it has been suggested that up to 85% of all medical research cannot contribute to our knowledge or be used to improve healthcare practices because it is designed badly, never published, published after a long time, published with insufficient details, or published with only some of the results.
The medical research community has investigated these problems over the past decade and funders, journals, and policymakers, among other research users, have proposed and supported initiatives and tools to help researchers conduct and publish their studies well enough so that they can fully contribute to our understanding of health and healthcare.
Some of these tools are reporting guidelines. Researchers use these simple checklists when writing a journal article to remember key information they need to include in their manuscripts, so readers can understand the methods used or reproduce the study.
There are reporting guidelines for many study designs and clinical areas. Researchers check the quality of papers to assess whether their field is generally good at writing them. If they find that the papers routinely do not mention important information, they might work with experts to create a new reporting guideline. However, they usually do not check whether adequate guidance already exists, or whether the problem is not the lack of guidance but the lack of education or awareness about that guidance.
Nutrition science is one area of research that constantly faces controversy. Associations between nutritional factors and health-related outcomes are difficult to measure. A single food can contain several nutrients, and they interact with each other in our body, making it difficult to work out each component's effect. With such complexity, it is vital that nutrition science studies are reported clearly and completely so that their methods can be easily understood and their findings used sensibly - but, unfortunately, the suggestion is that these papers are not well-reported.
We are consolidating reporting guidance for studies of nutritional interventions.
Today, all trials, including those on nutritional interventions, must be registered before they begin. Based on our background work to map the landscape of nutritional interventions' research and how well it is reported, we will survey nutrition scientists and other users of nutritional interventions' research to discuss whether nutrition science needs its own reporting guidelines. If we find that reporting is poor but a new guideline isn't the answer, we'll also discuss the best way to get existing guidance to researchers and help them to improve the reporting of their studies.
Our map of nutritional research today will be useful for researchers and funders, to help them plan and conduct overdue nutritional research. Our final recommendations - for either a new reporting guideline or how to improve the use of existing guidance - will help ensure studies of nutritional interventions are better reported so their methods and results can be more easily understood and used.
Reporting research appropriately is an essential component of the research cycle, and therefore an essential component of the research methods. Better papers today will help ensure better-designed studies tomorrow, faster scientific advances in the area of nutritional interventions, and better use of robust scientific evidence for the benefit of patients and the general public.
