Gaps and opportunities for nutrition research in relation to non-communicable diseases in Arab countries: Call for an informed research agenda

Abstract

Effective public health nutrition interventions are needed to curb the escalating prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in many Arab countries. In order to generate the scientific evidence needed for the success of these interventions, an informed research agenda should be developed. The purpose of this review is to identify gaps and opportunities for research on nutrition and NCDs among Arab countries, which is an important step towards the formulation of this research agenda. Published papers that addressed nutrition and NCDs in Arab countries between the years 2006 and 2015 were reviewed (n=824). The main gaps identified were related to the predominance of laboratory-based studies with few cohort and intervention studies, and the small percentage of articles examining dietary patterns. While food frequency questionnaires were the main dietary assessment method used, only 35% were validated. Very few studies included children and the majority considered nutrition in isolation, excluding other environmental factors. Opportunities identified included the promising momentum in studying nutrition and NCDs among Arab countries, evidenced by an increasing number of articles published over the years, that may be guided in future nutrition research to fill the identified gaps. In addition, the higher number of articles in high-income countries coupled with the impact of papers in middle-income countries suggests an opportunity of synergistic collaboration among these countries. The identified gaps and opportunities in this review may serve as basis for Arab countries to start developing a research agenda in the area of nutrition and NCDs.

Determinants of nutritional status during the first 1000 days of life in Lebanon: Sex of the child matters

“…Few studies focus on infants and children ≤2 years of age in the EMR, 18 and none exist in Lebanon, rather studies of the determinants of nutritional status are among older children (>2 years), 19 adolescents, 13 and adults. 20 Further, the studies do not account for the hierarchical nature among the multilevel determinants of nutritional status, nor stratify the analysis by child's sex.…”

Infant Feeding and Cardiovascular Disease: A multi-staged analysis from global to country data

“…A study in Egypt showed that micronutrient deficiency states co-exist with obesity and that serum Zinc and iron correlated with HDL and negatively with leptin and cholesterol (28) . Other studies have shown significant gaps in the diet of populations living in the EMR (29,30) . Vitamin D intake was found to improve cases with heart failure (31) and have been shown to have cardiopotent metabolic effects on HBP (32) .…”

The Nutrition Transition’s Effect in Lebanon: A Qualitative Study Exploring Adolescents’ Perspectives in Both Urban and Rural Areas

“…However, recent national epidemiological studies in Lebanon regarding the nutrition transition, adolescents' obesity and NCDs' prevalence are lacking; thereby, researchers rely solely on targeted research based on specific samples (Nasreddine et al, 2012). A systematic review by Naja et al (2017) exploring the studies on dietary patterns in Lebanon, indicated that very few studies included data collected from children and adolescents with most studies focusing on the examination of nutrition in isolation excluding other environmental factors (Naja et al, 2017).…”