MSc Project for Nutritions student in School for Policy studies

We have been unable to calculate the intake of essential fatty acids from the FFQ to date due to lack of funding - this is an oportunity to obtain this useful data and partially validate it against blood fatty acid levels at age 7 years.

The student would be provided with a copy of the macro used to calculate the intake of total polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) from the food frequency questionnaire completed by parents for their child age x months (7y FFQ). We would also provide a list of the foods and portion sizes used to calculate total PUFA. The student would search for data on the content of selected fatty acids, particularly Arachadonic acid and Alpha-linoleic acid (the precursors of the omega-6 and omega-3 series respectively) of the foods used. They would record the sources of all data on a spread sheet and complete the macro to enable calculation of each of these new fatty acids.

The calculation of the intake of the fatty acids from ALSPAC participants data would be carried out by Pauline Emmett so that the student would not need access to the ALSPAC dataset. Unlinked summary results would be used by the student to assess possible outliers and for their MSc write-up. The fatty acid intakes thus claculated would be correlated (by Pauline Emmett) with blood measures of these fatty acids to assess the effectiveness of the FFQ to assess these nutrients. Summary unlinked results would be returned to the student. The calculated fatty acid intake for ALSPAC 7 year olds would become available to other users at the end of this project.