2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee

Nutrition Evidence Library (NEL) Systematic Reviews

The NEL website provides a detailed evidence portfolio for each of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s systematic reviews. Each evidence portfolio in the NEL contains the systematic review questions, technical abstract, conclusion statement and grade, key findings, research recommendations, evidence summaries, and search plan and results. The Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee summarizes science reviews conducted using systematic review findings and other evidence-based approaches, and provides interpretations and implications related to these reviews. Information in the report was vetted by the full committee and presented at public meetings; however, more detailed supporting information on each specific systematic review is available on the NEL website. To navigate the NEL:

• Select a topic from the menu on the left to examine the evidence reviewed by the Committee
• Each topic is divided into subtopics of questions reviewed by the Committee
• By clicking on a subtopic you can access:
  • Systematic review questions - Questions formulated by the Committee, with analytical frameworks
    • Click the question to access the technical abstract, which succinctly describes the question, background, conclusion, methods and findings, or hover over the question to see the just the conclusion statement and grade
  • Full Review -
    • Conclusion statements: Concise statements that answer the questions based on the Committee's review of the evidence
    • Grade: Indicates the strength of the evidence support
    • Key Findings: Highlight important findings that contributed to conclusion statement development
    • Research Recommendations: Identify research gaps and limitations
  • Evidence summaries - A description and synthesis of the body of evidence, the NEL Risk of Bias table, research recommendations, and references
  • Search plan and results - A description of the search parameters and selection criteria used to identify peer-reviewed literature related to the topic of interest. Additionally, the final list of articles included in the review is provided, along with the articles excluded from the review, with reasons for exclusion.

Note: For 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee and support staff membership and acknowledgments lists, see: Membership and Appendix E-10: Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Report Acknowledgments.