Dietary Pattern Analysis

Abstract Dietary pattern analysis is a method of dietary analysis that considers the cumulative and interactive effects among dietary components to reflect the complexity of the human diet. It is a modern, comprehensive, and “holistic” approach that can overcome several methodological limitations in studying the association between human diet and health. This chapter aims to describe the rationale of dietary patterns analysis and the challenges in applying it in nutrition research. The reader will have the opportunity to be guided in various types of analysis (i.e., “a priori”, “a posteriori,” and “hybrid”) along with their strengths and limitations.