The systematic review methodology used to support the 2010 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.

t r s s s s t r The Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) are jointly issued and updated every 5 years by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the US Deartment of Health and Human Services (HHS). They rovide authoritative nutrition advice for people age 2 ears and older to promote health and reduce risk for ajor chronic diseases. To update the 2005 DGA (1), the SDA and HHS appointed a 13-member Dietary Guideines Advisory Committee (DGAC) to provide indepenent, science-based advice and recommendations that ould inform the development of the 2010 DGA. The ommittee was charged to focus their review on scientific vidence published since the 2005 DGAC report and place rimary emphasis on the development of food-based recmmendations (2). The purpose of this paper is to describe the systematic eview methodology used by the 2010 DGAC to support he development of its evidence-based conclusions and ecommendations. Strengths and opportunities for enancing the process are also presented. The USDA Nurition Evidence Library (NEL) was created to conduct ystematic reviews to inform federal nutrition policy and rograms. The NEL methodology was developed with ssistance from the Agency for Healthcare Research and uality and the American Dietetic Association and was