The Dietary Constituent-Cancer Modulation Analysis System (DC-CMAS) provides microcomputer-based, user friendly capabilities for dietary assessment. DC-CMAS will contain food consumption data, constituent data (nutrients, contaminants, food additives and other constituents), and biological characteristics of constituents (Recommended intake levels, metabolic activities, toxicology summaries, etc.). Phase I objectives are to (1) use new techniques developed by TAS to transfer the entire 1897-88 USDA Nationwide Food Consumption survey including each individual's daily intake records to a microcomputer (2) update and expand nutrient data sets, especially those relevant to cancer-modulation parameters, food processing and supplementation technologies and naturally-occurring food constituents, (3) update software to accommodate new data. These are the essential first steps required toward creating a fully integrated cancer modulation analysis system. DC-CMAS will be a valuable new tool for quantifying the distribution of intake within a population and for placing those analyses in biological perspective. DC-CMAS will provide scientists, food designers and regulatory officials a better method for assessing the impact of nutrient and constituent changes on the population's (subpopulations') cancer event probability. DC-CMAS will make large national surveys such as the USDA Nationwide Food Consumption Survey available to researchers without requiring computer budgets and specialized computer programming expertise.
