Background: The purpose of this study was to analyze the prevalence of nutrient intake inadequacy in Europe, applying the Nordic Nutritional Recommendations in the context of the EURRECA Network of Excellence. Methods: Nutrient data was obtained from the European Nutrition and Health Report II. Those nutritional surveys using a validated food frequency questionnaire or diet history and a food diary/ register with at least 7 days of registers or with an adjustment for intraindividual variability were included. The nutrients analyzed were: vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin B₁₂, folic acid, calcium, iron, zinc, selenium, copper, and iodine. The estimated average requirement cut point was applied to estimate inadequacy. The Nordic and Institute of Medicine nutrient recommendations were used as references. Results: The mean prevalence of inadequacy was below 11% for zinc, iron, and vitamin B₁₂ (only in the elderly), and it was 11–20% for copper in adults and the elderly and for vitamin B₁₂ in adults and vitamin C in the elderly. The prevalence was above 20% for vitamin D, folic acid, calcium, selenium, and iodine in adults and the elderly and for vitamin C in adults. Conclusions: Vitamin C, vitamin D, folic acid, calcium, selenium, and iodine were the nutrients showing a higher prevalence of inadequate intakes in Europe.

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There is a need for an effective nutrition policy promoting healthy nutrition in accordance with the ongoing dietary guidelines.

The short Catalan version of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire had acceptable validity for the measurement of total and vigorous physical activity. This questionnaire can be used to identify adherence to physical activity recommendations in the Catalan population.

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The purpose of the present study was to conduct a systematic review of the literature on the value of the methods used to assess dietary patterns for measuring nutrient intake adequacy in the population. Systematic review on Pubmed database up to April 2008. The search included specific key words and MeSH terms. No language limit was set. Only studies that compared food patterns with nutrient intake adequacy or nutrient biomarkers were included in the analysis. The search resulted in 1504 articles. The inclusion and exclusion criteria limited the selection to thirty articles. Nineteen studies evaluated the usefulness of the dietary patterns, eithera prioridefined (thirteen studies), or defined by factor analysis (four studies) or by cluster analysis (two studies), but only nine of them tested their validity (foura prioridefined and foura posterioridefined). Diet indices showed moderate to good validity results for measuring the adequacy of intakes for α-carotene, β-carotene, vitamin C, vitamin B6, Ca, folic acid, Fe and Mg. The factor analysis approach showed moderate to good validity correlations with the adequacy of intake of α-carotene, β-carotene, lutein, lycopene, vitamin C, vitamin B6and folic acid. Vitamin B12and vitamin E are the micronutrients with less probability of being adequately assessed with dietary patternsa prioriora posterioridefined. Diet indices are tools with fair to moderate validity to assess micronutrient intake adequacy.

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