Designing optimized food intake patterns for Korean adults using linear programming (¥±): adjustment of the optimized food intake pattern by establishing stepwise intake goals of sodium

Purpose: The Dietary Reference Intakes for Koreans (KDRIs) suggest that the goal for the intake of sodium should be less than 2,000 mg, which is thought to be infeasible to achieve when eating the typical Korean diet. This study aimed to obtain the new intake goals for sodium with improved feasibility to achieve, and also to design optimized food intake patterns for Korean adults by performing linear programming. Methods: The data from a one day 24-hour dietary recall of the 2010 ~ 2014 Korea National Health and Nutrition Survey were used to quantify food items that Korean adults usually consumed. These food items were categorized into seven groups and 24 subgroups. The mean intakes and intake distributions of the food groups and the food subgroups were calculated for eight age (19 ~ 29, 30 ~ 49, 50 ~ 64, and over 65 years old) and gender (male and female) groups. A linear programming model was constructed to minimize the difference between the optimized intakes and the mean intakes of the food subgroups while meeting KDRIs for energy and 13 nutrients, and not exceeding the typical quantities of each of the food subgroups consumed by the respective age and gender groups. As an initial solution of the linear programming, the optimized intake of seasonings, including salt, was calculated as 0 g for all the age and gender groups when the sodium constraint was inserted not to exceed 2,000 mg. Therefore, the sodium constraint was progressively increased by 100 mg until the optimized intake of seasoning was obtained as the values closest to the 25th percentile of the intake distribution of seasonings for the respective age and gender groups. Results: The optimized food intake patterns were mathematically obtained by performing linear programming when the sodium constraint values were 3,600 mg, 4,500 mg, 4,200 mg, 3,400 mg, 2,800 mg, 3,100 mg, 3,100 mg, and 2,500 mg for the eight age and gender groups. Conclusion: The optimized food intake patterns for Korean adults were designed by performing linear programming after increasing the sodium constraint values from 2,000 mg to 2500 ~ 4,500 mg according to the age and gender groups. The resulting patterns suggest that current diets should be modified to increase the intake of vegetables for all the groups, milk/dairy products for the female groups, and fruits for the female groups except for the females aged 50 ~ 64 years.