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. 2025 May;16(5):100420.
doi: 10.1016/j.advnut.2025.100420. Epub 2025 Apr 14.

Perspective: Diet Item Details: Reporting Checklist for Feeding Studies Measuring the Dietary Metabolome (DID-METAB Checklist) - Explanation and Elaboration Report on the Development of the Checklist by the DID-METAB Delphi Working Group

Jessica Ja Ferguson  1 , Erin D Clarke  1 , Jordan Stanford  1 , María Gómez-Martín  1 , Tammie Jakstas  1 , Clare E Collins  2 ; DID-METAB Delphi Working Group
Collaborators, Affiliations

Perspective: Diet Item Details: Reporting Checklist for Feeding Studies Measuring the Dietary Metabolome (DID-METAB Checklist) - Explanation and Elaboration Report on the Development of the Checklist by the DID-METAB Delphi Working Group

Jessica Ja Ferguson et al. Adv Nutr. 2025 May.

Abstract

Metabolomics is a postgenomic, systems-based discipline offering valuable applications in nutrition research, including the use of objective biomarkers to characterize dietary intake and metabolic responses more accurately. A scoping review identified the need for reporting guidance on dietary information in the form of a checklist to ensure reproducibility of human feeding studies that are measuring the diet-related metabolome. In this study, we aimed to gain consensus on a core outcome set pertaining to diet-related item details (DIDs) and recommendations for reporting DIDs to inform development of a reporting checklist. The goal of this checklist is to guide researchers on the minimum level of content and detail required for reporting dietary information in human feeding studies measuring the metabolome. A 2-stage online Delphi process encompassing 5 survey rounds with international experts in clinical trial design, feeding study intervention implementation, metabolomics, and/or human biospecimen analyses was conducted. A core outcome set encompassing 29 DIDs and accompanying recommendations was developed across 5 domains: dietary intervention-modeling (8 DIDs), dietary intervention-implementation (3 DIDs), dietary assessment (9 DIDs), adherence and compliance monitoring (4 DIDs), and bias (5 DIDs). The reporting guideline (DID-METAB Checklist) was generated and accepted by the international expert working group in the final survey round. All experts agreed that relevant journals should include the checklist as a suggested reporting tool for relevant studies and/or used alongside existing reporting tools. This report provides examples, explanations and elaboration for each recommendation including examples from published literature and references. The DID-METAB Checklist will be a key tool to advance the standardized reporting for feeding studies assessing the metabolome. Implementation of this tool will enable the ability to better interpret data and ensure global utility of results for furthering the advancement of metabolomics in nutrition research and future precision and personalized nutrition strategies.

Keywords: biomarkers; dietary assessment; dietary patterns; feeding study; metabolome; metabolomics; nutrition; personalized nutrition.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest CEC reports financial support was provided by National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC, APP2009340). EH is supported by a Laureate Fellowship from the Australian Research Council and is a director of Melico, outside the scope of the submitted work with no financial contribution. FZM is supported by a Senior Medical Research Fellowship from the Sylvia and Charles Viertel Charitable Foundation, a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellowship (105663), and NHMRC Emerging Leader Fellowship (GNT2017382). MS is supported by a National Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship (106698). JJAF holds a separate part-time employment at Sanitarium Health Food Company who had no input into the study and are not financially supporting or sponsoring any part of this study. MHT is supported by the BBSRC Core Capability Grant BB/CCG2260/1 and its constituent project BBS/E/QU/23NB0006 (Food and Nutrition National Bioscience Research Infrastructure). MAM is an Editorial Board Member for Advances in Nutrition and played no role in the Journal’s evaluation of the manuscript. All other authors report no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
The Delphi process. DID, diet item detail; PPN, Precision and Personalized Nutrition.
Image 1
Image 2
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