. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Mar 1.

Published in final edited form as: J Food Compost Anal. 2011 Oct 14;25(2):226–233. doi: 10.1016/j.jfca.2011.10.003

Table 3.

Use of LanguaL™ in Dietary Supplement Databases

Advantages	Example
Facilitate user-specified searches that will enable users to combine appropriate descriptors and download relevant data.	A researcher investigating the association between intake of calcium salts and blood pressure can use LanguaL™ to identify sources of calcium in conventional foods and dietary supplements and then download the information of interest to create a specialized database of calcium sources for the research study
Ease in combining food and dietary supplement databases to more accurately estimate nutrient intakes and explain health outcomes in epidemiological studies. Pertinent since food composition databases use LanguaL™ to index foods.	This is an important functionality in determining nutrients of public health interest and in arriving at dietary recommendations such as national dietary guidelines. For example, nutrients, such as calcium, vitamin B₁₂, and folic acid in dietary supplements make important contributions to the diets of pregnant women and older adults.
Facilitate uniformity in reporting research when applied to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) dietary supplement database.	The treatment of dietary supplement products is not uniform across studies. Currently, researchers use their own unique approaches to defining and classifying dietary supplements for analysis, making it difficult to compare findings across studies. Because LanguaL™ is a structured, controlled vocabulary for describing products, there will be a consistent approach to entering and classifying products in databases, thus facilitating uniform reporting of research.
Help trace the source of an adulterant, pesticide, contaminant, or food borne illness when a safety problem is identified.	If a dietary supplement product contains an adulterant of interest and the source of that adulterant is known and described in the database, then products containing the adulterant of interest can be identified in the database, and traced in the food supply.