Tufts University ADAPT Study
 

FYI: I was recently solicited to participate a dietary study conducted by Tufts University. It is called the ADAPT study (nothing to do with Dr. Westman's Adapt bar venture). Here is a link to a description of the study...

Adhering to Dietary Approaches for Personal Taste (ADAPT)

I decided to participate. It looks to be a fairly in-depth study. It involves a dozen or so surveys spaced over a 2 month period, including at least one 24 hour food recall survey. I've only completed the initial questionnaire, which included what diet I am following, books I've read, related websites that I frequent, etc. Among the selectable "diets" options were Paleo, vegan, Weight Watchers and several others. The closest thing to my current diet was "Low Carb / High Protein". I consider that a misconception, so I selected OTHER and wrote in Low Carb / High Fat. Given its current rise in popularity, I was surprised that a Ketogenic diet wasn't listed as one of the choices. Among the websites I listed were Dietdoctor.com and this forum. I'm not sure what will become of this survey data, but I wanted to make sure that LCHF was represented.

After I joined and completed the first survey (Demographics & Lifestyle), several more surveys were scheduled for me to complete (See list below). I don't know the details of each as I cannot open the survey until the date shown.

Physical Activity - 10/19/17
Social Support and Exercise - 10/19/17
Social Support and Eating Habits - 10/19/17
Your Dietary Habits - 10/26/17
Supplement Use - 10/26/17
Your Relationship with Food - 10/26/17
Nutrition & Exercise Self-Efficacy - 11/02/17
Your Feelings About Eating - 11/02/17
Medical History - 11/02/17
Food Acceptability - 11/09/17
Mental Health - 11/09/17
Eating and Self-Control - 11/09/17
Sleep - 11/16/17
Personality Type - 11/16/17
Wrap Up/Permission to Contact for Followup - 11/22/17

If you read the webpage at the link above you will see that they are still soliciting for others to participate (especially men, who are underrepresented). So I thought that I'd put this out here for you to consider. It is not a 5 minute, one time survey. It will take several hours in total to complete. But just in case you are interested, I thought that this might be a good opportunity to make sure the low carb community's voice is heard in one of these dietary surveys.

Very interesting, Ken. Please keep us informed as you continue your participation. I just quickly scanned the site and will return to review in detail when I have some more time.

I don't have the time or I would participate. Thanks for putting this out there.

I've signed up to participate. Given my negative experience with the weight loss registry, it's hard to feel optimistic about these large studies, but I have the time and I'm interested in the question so I'll participate.

Jean

I've been doing the ADAPT study - I'm up to Medical History. I did the same thing - chose "other" as my diet and answered based on a low carb, moderate protein, high fat diet.
I find that each survey takes me less than five minutes, maybe around 15 for the longest one so far.

Thanks - I signed up. We need more acknowledgement of low carb/medium protein/high fat.

I won't participate. I don't see the need, I can answer that question with a simple answer: Support. However, the question, how it's worded here, is biased and misleading, i.e. "...adhere to healthier dietary...", and "...their chosen dietary...".

So, the answer is "support", but what does that mean, really? It means everything you think it means in every sense of the word. It means it gets repeated ad nauseam by anybody and his dog everywhere you go, in everything you read, look at and listen to. It means everybody you know, knows the same thing, or at least repeats it to you, reminds you of what's good and bad. It means you get help from those who do the same thing you do, or at least who think you're doing the right thing. "Good job", "you're doing the right thing", "I'm there for you", etc, etc, etc.

On this forum, we do exactly that. But there's a much bigger "forum", it's called the Official Dietary Guidelines, and there isn't really a discussion forum for it, it's more of a mantra, a dogma, a propaganda, and a diet all in one confused mess, and it works like a charm cuz everybody and his dog really do sing the same hymn. There's even a professional entity called Dieticians that merely repeats the same thing.

It's called the Official Dietary Duidelines, but just to illustrate, let's change the name to Mr Dick's Sugar And Wheat Diet For Big Bucks. Now it's just another diet but with a giant industry behind it. There's no competition to speak of. All other diets are small time players with corresponding support - little to none.

Actually, the answer is even more obvious if the question instead is "why don't people stick to any particular diet", especially since that question is much more pertinent considering it's the single most repeated result in all dietary experiments ever done. Check for yourself. I mean, if LCHF - indeed any alternative diet - works so well, why do even just one of us go back to SAD?

Maybe I'm a little too cynical, even for my own taste, but whatever that's my take on this.

I'm very skeptical too. It seems unlikely for many reasons that this will result in any useful understanding or advice yet still I am participating. It must be that glimmer of hope however unlikely :) .

Jean

I completed the next round of surveys tonight. They actually open up a week before the date show. I guess that date is the 'target date' for getting the survey completed.

Todays surveys were about activity, inactivity, and support. In summary I reported that I do little vigorous activity, sit a lot each day, and walk for an hour or more 7 days a week. I was asked if I track my food in an app. I do here in MY PLAN. I was asked about a fitness tracker. I use one. On the support survey I reported that I get reasonable support at home (nobody is telling me not to do my LCHF diet and nobody is offering or encouraging me to eat off plan foods). I did report that I was exposed to off plan foods very often. When you eat low carb, that is pretty much the norm.

So, nothing really exciting in these surveys so far. It seems to be about providing facts and feelings to the best of my recolection. Unlike the National Weight Control Registry annual survey, so far there is no apparent slant in favor of a particular WOE.

I just completed all the ADAPT surveys. The last one has another place for comments, so I took the opportunity to state how all of my health issues dissappeared on my LCHF diet.

I'm glad to know that I'll be able to make comments. I already screwed up the first question on activity because I misunderstood it. And the others weren't easy either. When you don't have a job & most of the at-home activities are sporadic, it's hard to express them in the way they wanted.

There is a limited character count in the comments box. I was able to squeeze in two short sentences - be prepared to be succinct!

I took the Food History survey today. This was not the 24 hour recall. I suppose that one is still coming. This was a series of questions about the frequency I'd eaten specific foods in the past month and an estimate of how much I ate per meal. For most whole food items this works fine. I can come up with a reasonable ball-park of how much and how often I ate these items. Where it falls apart are combination foods. The breads & pasta section included pizza. I have had fathead pizza in the past month. It did not have a wheat crust, so I did not check off pizza. The meat section included hamburgers - dining out and hamburgers - home made. The assumption there was these were with a bun. I had bunless home-made burgers. There was no option on the survey for ground beef patty. What I ended up doing was picking only the foods that I know would not be interpreted differently than I prepared them. From my results it will be clear that I am LCHF. I marked lots of non-starchy veggies, strawberries, cantaloupe, cheeses and meats. No breads. No pasta. No grain. When they asked about low-fat/non-fat choices I picked the option that indicated full fat. So all-in-all they will have a decent picture of what I eat. But it was no where near perfect or complete. Hopefully the food recall survey will let me specifically state all that I eat.

I also did the medical history survey. I was able to indicate that I had diabetes, hypertension, chronic bronchitis, candida/fungus, and eczema. I was then able to indicate that I no longer have any of these. I indicated that I did take some prescription meds and that I no longer take any prescription meds. They did not ask for specific info, such as A1c scores, cholesterol results, etc. Again, it was not perfect information, but the trend of getting healthier was indicated in my responses.

That all makes perfectly good sense Ken. I would have chosen the same way since all of those foods included bread products. That's about the only way to give them a true picture of what you eat.
Great for their data that you kept track of all of your labs so well too!

I've been filling out the study surveys too so this one must be my next one. It's what I didn't like about the weight loss registry, they didn't devise a food list that allowed for low carb eating. I eat no highly processed food and no restaurant food. Virtually all my foods are single ingredient foods (my sardines are in olive oil). When hamburger is listed with the assumption that it has a bun their bias is showing. Like nearly all of us here I eat hamburger but never with a bun. I also eat ground venison and ground pork and, of course, also without a bun. I am not looking forward to this part of the survey. I will not indicate that I eat anything that contains carbs from sugar, grains or fruit now will I indicate I eat anything that is intentionally low fat, that is something that has been processed so that fat is removed.

Jean