The WHO Department of Nutrition for Health and Development (NHD), through the work of the Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group (NUGAG) Subgroup on Diet and Health, is updating the population nutrient intake goals for the prevention of noncommunicable NCDs established in 1989 by the WHO Study Group on Diet, Nutrition and Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases and later updated by the 2002 Joint WHO/FAO Expert Consultation on Diet, Nutrition and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases. Having completed the work on updating guidelines on sodium and potassium intake (published in 2012) and on sugars intake (published in 2015), the NUGAG Subgroup on Diet and Health is working on updating guidance on the intake of total fat, saturated fatty acids, trans- fatty acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, non-sugar sweeteners and carbohydrates, including dietary fibre. Over the past several years, the NUGAG Subgroup on Diet and Health also began reviewing the issues related to dietary patterns, in which interest and concern are growing as a result of rapidly changing food environments.
The work of updating the dietary goals and development of guidance on dietary patterns being carried out by the NUGAG Subgroup on Diet and Health contributes to efforts to achieve global goals and commitments to improve health and promote safe and healthy diets, including commitments made at the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) in 2014; Global Nutrition and NCD targets adopted by the 65th and 66th World Health Assemblies, respectively; the ‘triple billion’ targets set up by the 13th General Programme of Work (2019 – 2023), including one billion more people enjoying better health and well-being; the Sustainable Development Goals; and the goals of the UN Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016-2025) declared by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in April 2016. This will also contribute to the implementation of the Political Declaration of the UN High-level Meeting on NCDs held in New York in September 2011 and the outcome document of the high-level meeting of the UN General Assembly on NCDs (A/RES/68/300) held in New York in July 2014. Furthermore, it had also provided inputs to the work of the high–level Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity established by the WHO Director-General in May 2014.
The Nutrition Policy and Scientific Advice Unit (NPU) serves as the Secretariat of the NUGAG Subgroup on Diet and Health and will be convening the 13th meeting of the NUGAG Subgroup on Diet and Health in Qingdao, China from 16 to 19 December 2019.
The objectives of the 13th meeting are to:
- Discuss outstanding issues related to finalization of the guidelines for polyunsaturated fatty acids, non-sugar sweeteners and carbohydrates through:
- Reviewing supplementary evidence from new and updated systematic reviews;
- Assessing the certainly of the evidence; and
- Finalizing recommendations formulated at the 12th meeting of the NUGAG Subgroup on Diet and Health, having taken into consideration detailed criteria, such as the balance of evidence on benefits and harms, values and preferences, resource implications, priority of the problems, equity and human rights, acceptability and feasibility.
- Reviewing and identifying implications for future research, taking into account on- going research and any existing controversies; and
- Reviewing challenges for implementation of the guidelines.
- Review the issues related to the use of low-sodium salt substitutes to reduce sodium/salt consumption through:
- Reviewing scoping materials
- Developing key questions in PICO format
- Prioritizing health outcomes
Objective 2 on the issues related to the low-sodium salt substitutes is included as an additional agenda item for the NUGAG Subgroup on Diet and Health to review due to increasing need and requests for WHO guidance as to whether it would be an effective public health approach for reducing sodium/salt intake in populations.
The expected outcomes of the meeting are, therefore, finalization of any outstanding issues on the guidelines for polyunsaturated fatty acids, non-sugar sweeteners and carbohydrates; and PICO questions and prioritized outcomes for low-sodium salt substitutes.