Macronutrient and food intake in the Baltic republics

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this study was to describe mean macronutrient and food intakes in the Baltic republics, with a particular focus on fat, vegetable and fruit consumption. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Data from surveys conducted in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in the summer of 1997 were used. Information was collected using a 24 h recall of dietary intake and an interviewer-administered questionnaire. Subjects: Representative national samples of adults were selected. All those with information from the dietary recall were included in the study (Estonia: n 2015; Latvia: n 2300; Lithuania: n 2094). Results: The mean proportion of energy from fat was high in each country, but particularly in Lithuania (44%) and Latvia (42%) compared with Estonia (36%). In contrast, percentage energy from carbohydrate, protein and alcohol was higher in Estonia. Mean protein intake was generally suf®cient if not high in some population sub-groups. Median vegetable intakes were very low (`200 gaday) in each country, particularly in Latvia. While 78% of the Lithuanian respondents consumed vegetables daily, this was the case in only 60% of the Latvian and 48% of the Estonian respondents. Conclusions: This study suggests that there is a pressing need to replace high-fat energy dense foods by foods rich in complex carbohydrates and dietary ®bre, such as vegetables and fruits, in the Baltic republics. This could provide the populations with a reduced risk and increased protection against non-communicable diseases. These issues will need to be tackled through comprehensive food and nutrition policies and health promotion campaigns.

Food consumption, energy and nutrient intake and nutritional status in rural Bangladesh: changes from 1981–1982 to 1995–96

“…Republics (Pomerleau et al, 2001) and Italy (Turrini et al, 2001) have not quantified variation in the evaluation in intakes among recognized determinants, although they are to some extent considered by calculating simple averages and=or medians. However, some studies have compared differences in crude mean values with or without standard errors at different points in time, supplemented with estimates from food supply data in order to evaluate trends (Dobson et al, 1997;Harnack et al, 2000;Kim et al, 2000).…”

A systematic review of methods to assess intake of fruits and vegetables among healthy European adults and children: a DEDIPAC (DEterminants of DIet and Physical Activity) study

“…From the sourced articles, fifty-one pan-European studies in total were identified: thirty-five named projects and sixteen smaller projects (48,54,56,65,69,72,82,83,88,93,94,107,109,113,114,116) . Most studies assessed dietary intake of F&V among adults (18,41,44,46,48,50,51,(54)(55)(56)(57)59,60,(64)(65)(66)68,69,71,72,(75)(76)(77)(78)(79)(81)(82)(83)(84)86,88,(92)(93)(94)107,…”

“…2 (Italy, Spain) FFQ X (53) Baltic project (55) 3 (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) 24-HDR Standardised questionnaire Behanova et al (56) 2 (Slovakia, Netherlands) FFQ CNSHS (57,58) 4 (Germany, Denmark, Poland, Bulgaria) FFQ X ECRHS (59) 3 (Germany, UK, Norway) FFQ (based on EPIC-UK and EPIC-Germany FFQ) X (59) EHBS (60) 21 in total FFQ X 17 European countries (Austria, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland) ENERGY (27) 7 (Belgium, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Spain) FFQ X (28) X EPIC (18,28,29,61,62) 10 (Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France, Greece, Norway, England)…”

Comparison of the Micro-Nutrica Nutritional Analysis program and the Russian Food Composition Database using data from the Baltic Nutrition Surveys

“…The discrepancies between databases observed for fat intakes are particularly important. Although this may not be of importance to track changes in fat intake over time within one country, it requires us to reconsider the results of the Baltic Nutrition Surveys (Pomerleau et al, 2001), which suggested a lower fat intake in Estonia (37% of dietary energy in male subjects and 36% in female subjects) compared with Latvia (43% in male subjects and 41% in female subjects) and Lithuania (45% in male subjects and 43% in female subjects). Indeed, we can postulate that this difference may be partly due to differences between the food composition databases used to convert survey information into nutrients, and not to true differences in intakes.…”

“…As two different databases were used to derive nutrient intakes in the Baltic Nutrition Surveys, this study set out to investigate whether intrinsic differences between the Russian and adapted-Finnish databases could have influenced between-country variations in estimated nutrient intakes (Pomerleau et al, 2001). The objective of the study was to compare the databases at two different levels: first the energy and nutrient composition of 15 foodstuffs commonly consumed by the populations of the region (Kasmel et al, 1998), and second the mean energy and nutrient intake of a sample of 32 survey participants.…”