The Philosophy of Evidence-Based Principles and Practice in Nutrition. Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The practice of evidence-based nutrition involves using the best available nutrition evidence, together with clinical experience, to conscientiously work with patients' values and preferences to help them prevent (sometimes), resolve (sometimes), or cope with (often) problems related to their physical, mental, and social health. This article outlines the 3 fundamental principles of evidence-based practice as applied to thefield of clinical nutrition. First, optimal clinical decision making requires awareness of the best available evidence, which ideally will come from unbiased systematic summaries of that evidence. Second,evidence-based nutrition provides guidance on how to decide which evidence is more or lesstrustworthy-that is, how certain can we be of our patients' prognosis, diagnosis, or of our therapeuticoptions? Third, evidence alone is never sufficient to make a clinical decision. Decision makers must always trade off the benefits with the risks, burden, and costs associated with alternative management strategies, and, in so doing, consider their patients' unique predicament, including their values and preferences.

published proceedings

  • Mayo Clin Proc Innov Qual Outcomes

altmetric score

  • 32.85

author list (cited authors)

  • Johnston, B. C., Seivenpiper, J. L., Vernooij, R., de Souza, R. J., Jenkins, D., Zeraatkar, D., Bier, D. M., & Guyatt, G. H.

citation count

  • 17

complete list of authors

  • Johnston, Bradley C||Seivenpiper, John L||Vernooij, Robin WM||de Souza, Russell J||Jenkins, David JA||Zeraatkar, Dena||Bier, Dennis M||Guyatt, Gordon H

publication date

  • June 2019