People Can Now Make Informed Decisions About Their Diet And Healthy Habits

Oct, 2022 - By WMR

Today, the studies from the University of Washington School of Medicine's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) were released in Nature Medicine.

The results are displayed using a simple star rating system that indicates the degree of support for each connection.

The new star rating system intends to assist individuals in making decisions regarding their own health, influence health policy, and direct future study.

IHME discovered that the relationship between a risk factor and a health result was frequently weaker than previously thought. 112 out of 180 risk-outcome combinations were examined, or nearly two-thirds, and only obtained a one- or two-star grade.

These include well-known associations like eating a lot of unprocessed red meat and developing ischemic stroke (one star). IHME's study supported widespread consensus in other instances.

In the near future, more star ratings will be introduced. The approach considers both the level of risk indicated by studies conducted to date as well as the consistency of results across those studies.

To reduce the influence of bias or inaccuracy in the underlying data, the star ratings are based on the most conservative interpretation of the evidence that is currently available. A score of one means there might not actually be a connection between the behaviour or condition and the health consequence.

A situation is given two stars if it is it is at least correlated with a 0–15% transformation in the probability of a health outcome, three stars if it is correlated with a 15–50% change, four stars if it is correlated with a 50–85% transformation, and five stars if it is correlated with a change of more than 85%. For instance, the five-star rating for smoking and lung cancer indicates that smoking more than 85% more likely to develop or pass away from lung cancer.