Research

Mixed

Nutrition intervention trials for complex chronic disease exhibit extensive heterogeneity in outcome reporting, with only 8% of outcomes reported with relative consistency and a 25% agreement rate with established Core Outcome Sets (COS).

For researchers and clinicians: Do not assume that 'nutrition intervention' studies are directly comparable just because they treat similar diseases. Look for whether they use Core Outcome Sets (COS). If they don't, the results may be difficult to apply to other patients or combine with other studies. Advocate for the use of standardized outcome sets in your own work to ensure your findings contribute to reliable evidence.

GoodQualifiesHIGH confidence
The RCTs demonstrated extensive outcome heterogeneity, with only five outcomes (5/66, 8%) being reported with relative consistency (cited by ≥50% of publications)... Poor agreement (25%) was observed between the outcomes reported in the RCTs and those recommended by the COS.
Savita A Sandhu et al. · Nutrients · 2021

Why this rating

Based on a rapid review of 45 RCTs and 7 COS, providing a broad but methodologically sound overview.

Source

Standardised Outcome Reporting for the Nutrition Management of Complex Chronic Disease: A Rapid Review

Savita A Sandhu et al. · Nutrients · 2021

DOI 10.3390/nu13103388

systematic_reviewCited 2×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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