The average intake of carbonated drinks declined from 0.7 to 0.6 drinks per day and it is difficult to know if this reflects a real change in intake over time or is a consequence of the low overall intake of carbonated drinks.
In addition, in order to analyse changes in nutrient intake over time, the tracking of modifications made to food items is a necessary special feature of those FCDB which aim to keep up with the rapidly changing food market.
However, previous research has not examined changes in beverage intake over time using nationally representative longitudinal data.
There is a potential for misclassification of exposure due to possible changes in alcohol intake over time.
Furthermore, our measure of fruit and vegetable intake was not captured using the gold standard of 24-h recall, which may have impacted our ability to examine more accurate changes in nutritional intake over time.
Diet was assessed only once at baseline, as opposed to repeated assessments during follow-up, therefore we were not able to examine the changes in fat intake over time.
The authors note that total diet studies, which are regularly conducted in a number of countries, are a good source of data to estimate changes in contaminant intake over time, because food is typically the primary source of ongoing exposures in postban situations.
None of the time-varying variables were associated with change in fat intake over time.
However, unlike total fat intake, changes in total saturated fat intake over time significantly differed between groups (P = 0.03).
Although calorie intake did not change significantly over time among the entire cohort, an increase in calorie intake over time was positively associated with an increase in BMI, weight, and total body fat mass over time (P = 0.032, P = 0.024, and P = 0.025, respectively) after adjusting for baseline characteristics.
