2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Systematic Reviews

2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Systematic Reviews

This page provides detailed information about the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s systematic reviews and evidence scan, including: 

Introduction to the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee Systematic reviews

Development of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030 (Dietary Guidelines) is a scientifically rigorous, multi-year process. The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) established the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee to support the development of the next edition of the Dietary Guidelines. The Committee reviewed the evidence on high priority scientific questions related to nutrition and health from birth to older adulthood. Their review formed the basis of their Scientific Report, which includes independent, science-based advice and recommendations to HHS and USDA. The report is a key resource that the Departments use in developing the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030. Please visit Dietaryguidelines.gov for information about the process to update the Dietary Guidelines.

Systematic reviews are one of three approaches that the Committee used to examine the evidence. The Committee also conducted an evidence scan. The USDA’s Nutrition Evidence Systematic Review (NESR) team supported the Committee in conducting its systematic reviews.

A NESR systematic review is a gold-standard evidence synthesis project that answers a nutrition question of public health importance using systematic, transparent, rigorous, and protocol-driven methods to search for, evaluate, synthesize, and grade the strength of the eligible body of evidence. This approach allowed the Committee to answer high priority scientific questions by reviewing the total body of scientific evidence that has been published on a particular topic. A NESR evidence scan is an exploratory evidence description project in which systematic methods are used to search for and describe the volume and characteristics of evidence available on a nutrition question or topic of public health importance.

All of the Committee’s scientific questions were reviewed with a health equity lens to ensure that the next edition of the Dietary Guidelines is relevant to people with diverse racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds. Therefore, in conducting their reviews, the Committee described and considered factors such as socioeconomic position, race, ethnicity, and culture, to the greatest extent possible, based on the information provided in the scientific literature and data.

NESR’s Methodology used by the 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee

The Committee used NESR’s rigorous and transparent methodology to conduct and/or update systematic reviews. NESR’s systematic review methodology involves:

  • developing a systematic review protocol,
  • searching for and, screening articles,
  • extracting data from and assessing the risk of bias of each included article, 
  • synthesizing the evidence,
  • developing conclusion statements,
  • grading the evidence underlying the conclusion statement(s), and 
  • recommending future research.

NESR’s systematic review methodology is described in our methodology manual and in the Committee's Scientific Report. The manual describes NESR’s methods for conducting (Chapters 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7) and updating (Chapter 8) systematic reviews. The manual also describes the methodology for conducting Evidence Scans (Chapter 9).

The Committee’s protocols for this work can be accessed on NESR’s Protocol page.

All of the Committee’s systematic reviews underwent external peer review in a process coordinated by staff from the National Institutes for Health (NIH).

View NESR Methodology Manual

The 2025 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s Systematic Reviews and Evidence Scan

The 2025 Committee’s systematic reviews and evidence scan can be accessed below and are organized by the following topic areas: