CONSORT (CONsolidated Standards Of Reporting Trials) is a set of guidelines used for improving the accuracy of and reporting completeness of randomised controlled trials (RCTs). However, nutrition RCTs, due to their complex and intricate nature, may be incompletely reported. Well designed and conducted RCTs, when reported well, allow for estimation of causal effects with fewer assumptions than observational studies, however insufficient and vague reporting lead to uncertainty in the interpretation of the findings, and ineffective translation of evidence for the development of public health policy, dietary guidelines and clinical practice.
The CONSORT-Nut guidelines were prepared by scholars active in nutrition research and its reporting. The author group brings together representatives from working groups of the Federation of European Nutrition Societies (FENS) and the Supporting Transparency And Reproducibility in studies of NUTritional interventions (STAR-NUT) group from EQUATOR.
This extension was developed through a multi-step, iterative and consultative process with input from journal editors and nutrition researchers globally followed by a consensus meeting in collaboration with EQUATOR and piloted with early career researchers. CONSORT-Nut 2025 contains nine nutrition-specific recommendations. If there is no CONSORT-Nut 2025 reporting recommendation for a particular item, CONSORT 2025 is deemed sufficient for users. However, in some cases examples and/or explanations, to facilitate application of that CONSORT 2025 item to nutrition trials have been provided.