Nutrimedia, the website that evaluates the reliability of feed messages published on the web

The Observatory of Scientific Communication of the Pompeu Fabra University has just launched Nutrimedia, a website that aims to analyze what scientific trust deserves the messages on food and nutrition that flood the media and social networks. With the objective that citizens can make more informed decisions about what they eat or stop eating, the results of the evaluations will be published gradually with scientific data and criteria.

Related In this first phase, Nutrimedia promoters will evaluate a selection of myths, news and announcements that are a trend in food and nutrition. Likewise, questions formulated by the followers of the site will be analyzed and answered.In total, there will be 30 messages, some of which have already been published.

The summaries of the evaluations, written in informative language and accessible to all, follow the following structure: contextualization of the message, verdict of the analysis, justification of the conclusion, degree of confidence in the results of the investigations and, when estimated Timely, complementary information.For those who want to know more scientific details, the full technical report will also be available.

»Nutrimedia is the only source of information on nutrition and nutrition in Spanish that applies a method of scientific evaluation or to establish the degree of confidence or quality of the evidence behind each message», explained the people responsible for the project through the Sinc Agency.

nutrimedia, quality information on nutrition

What steps do professionals take to carry out these analyzes? To carry out the evaluation, the most relevant studies on each issue are identified and selected first; Then they analyze the degree of confidence that the results deserve through the GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) system, a proven methodology that classifies the level of certainty of health messages (high, moderate, low and very low).

Finally, the assessment of the accuracy of each message is classified in five grades: true, probably true, probably false, false and uncertain.The first six published evaluations have determined the following: the message »Antioxidant supplements prevent disease» is probably false; the message »moderate alcohol consumption is beneficial to health» also proves to be false.

first results

In addition, they have determined that the message »Danacol lowers high cholesterol up to 10%» (announcement) is true; »Eating more than five daily servings of fruits and vegetables is healthy» (news) also turns out to be true; »Sugar added to food is harmful to health» (news) is probably true, and whether or not »palm oil is more harmful to health than other fats of similar use» (question), it has been concluded that studies that analyze direct effects on health are missing and those available are of very low quality.

According to experts, one of the peculiarities in nutrition is that most of the studies are observational, and these usually provide low-quality scientific evidence. It also happens that there are many interesting questions that have been little or nothing investigated, or the available results are uncertain and do not allow conclusions or recommendations to be drawn up.This project has the collaboration of experts in evidence-based medicine (MBE), nutrition and evaluation of scientific results linked to the Cochrane Iberoamerica Center , as well as with the support of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT).

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