Ideas in this flowchart

• Evidence-based nutrition guides the design of nutritional guidelines.
• The scientific method is a productive component of this approach.
• It helps define essential nutrients and determine whether they promote health and prevent disease.
• Iodine’s treatment of goiter illustrates the lengthy process of scientific recognition.
• More than one hundred years passed between iodine’s discovery as an effective treatment and public health recognition.
• The evidence-based approach includes a series of interconnected stages.
• Define the problem or uncertainty, such as the lower incidence of goiter among people who consume seaweed.
• Formulate the problem as a question, such as whether eating seaweed decreases the risk of goiter.
• Set criteria for identifying quality evidence.
• Evaluate the body of available evidence.
• Summarize the evidence and make decisions.
• Specify the strength of supporting evidence required for decisions.
• Disseminate the findings.