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The purpose of the present study was to test the usefulness of dish items selected in developing a dish-based FFQ (DFFQ) to be used for epidemiological studies in Korea. The dietary data of 6817 subjects from the 2001 Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were used for the analysis. The 24 h recall method was employed for the dietary survey. Initially, ninety-five dish items were selected in developing the DFFQ based on consumption frequency, contribution of selected nutrients and coverage of between-person variations. The usefulness of the selected ninety-five dish items was tested based on their degree of contribution in supplying nutrients in the cumulative percentage contribution (cPC), as well as on their degree of explanation for between-person variation in the cumulative regression coefficient (cMRC). According to the results, the ninety-five selected dish items accounted for an average of 92·3 % of seventeen nutrients consumed by the study subjects based on cPC estimation. The top twenty items among the ninety-five dish items covered 70 to 91 % of the between-person variation for the seventeen nutrients based on cMRC estimation. Thus, the results suggest that the ninety-five items would be useful in developing a FFQ for use in epidemiological studies of Koreans, within less than 10 % underestimation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Gim (Porphyra sp.) and miyeok (Undaria pinnatifida) are the seaweeds most consumed by Koreans. We investigated the association between the intake of gim and miyeok and the risk of breast cancer in a case-control study. Cases were 362 women aged 30-65 years old, who were histologically confirmed to have breast cancer. Controls visiting the same hospital were matched to cases according to their age (sd 2 years) and menopausal status. Food intake was estimated by the quantitative FFQ with 121 items, including gim and miyeok. Conditional logistic regression analysis was used to obtain the OR and corresponding 95 % CI. The average intake and consumption frequency of gim in cases were lower than in controls. The daily intake of gim was inversely associated with the risk of breast cancer (5th v. 1st quintile, OR, 0.48; 95 % CI, 0.27, 0.86; P for trend, 0.026) after adjustment for potential confounders. After stratification analysis was performed according to menopausal status, premenopausal women (5th v. 1st quintile, OR, 0.44; 95 % CI, 0.24, 0.80; P for trend, 0.007) and postmenopausal women (5th v. 1st quintile, OR, 0.32; 95 % CI, 0.13, 0.80; P for trend, 0.06) showed similar inverse associations between gim intake and the risk of breast cancer after an adjustment for potential confounders except dietary factors. Miyeok consumption did not have any significant associations with breast cancer. These results suggest that high intake of gim may decrease the risk of breast cancer.