Dashboard: Symptom-Nutrient Correlations

Symptom-Nutrient Correlations

The Symptom-Nutrient Correlations section is at the top of the Dashboard. This feature provides the user with known nutrient consumption correlations to their health symptoms.  For instance, too much Zinc could cause headaches.  Similarly,  too little Vitamin B5 could cause headaches.  Using these known symptom-nutrient relationships, TCT will first correlate the symptom logged to the known nutrient consumption data to find the list of suspect nutrients. Subsequently, TCT will analyze the user's actual consumption amounts of those nutrients to let the user know if there are suspect nutrients that could be causing the symptom.  After identifying suspect nutrients consumption causes, the user can make informed dietary changes to increase or decrease consumption amounts as needed.

What to expect when you open the Dashboard

When you first use TCT and open the Dashboard, a note asking for more information is displayed (this note will also appear when there hasn't been a symptom logged within the last 30 days).  After a symptom is logged, this note will disappear.  Only symptoms logged from the list of "common" symptoms on the Symptom Logger page are usable for the symptom-nutrient analysis (see "Notes" below for explanation).  The symptom(s) logged will now appear on the dashboard. Each symptom logged (e.g., "Headache", "Diarrhea") will appear inside a dedicated box with the symptom title and a selectable arrow that will navigate you to the Symptom-Nutrient Correlations analysis page (see "Dive into the details" below for more details).  If you are monitoring multiple symptoms, simply scroll to the left to reveal all the symptoms logged within the last 30 days.  The box with the symptom title and the navigation arrow is all that will display until you log meals.

Logging meals to support the analysis

For the symptom-nutrient feature to be effective, the user must consistently log meals because the dashboard feature averages your nutrient consumption over a 30-day period to identify nutrients that are consumed in deficient or excessive amounts.  If suspect nutrients are identified, then in the Symptom box, below the title of the symptom, the number of suspect nutrients are listed (e.g., if you logged Headache, there are five potential nutrients that if consumed below the recommended amount could cause your headache.  If you are deficient in three of those five, "3 potential deficiencies" will be displayed).  Similarly, the number of nutrients that if consumed in excessive amounts are displayed (e.g., "2 potential excesses").

What the colors mean

To help the user quickly identify a suspect nutrient correlation, an orange or green border will outline the symptom box.

• If the box has an orange outline, you have consumed either deficient or excessive amounts of at least one nutrient.
• If the box has a green outline, you have consumed the minimum recommended amount of the nutrients associated with deficient intake AND are under the maximum consumption recommendations for those nutrients associated with excess intake.  Remember, this data is averaged over a 30-day period therefore it is very important that you consistently and accurately log your food consumption.

Dive into the details

To dive into the nutrient correlation details, simply select the navigation arrow in the symptom box to navigate to the Symptom-Nutrient Correlations analysis.  Once there, you can change the analysis period (e.g., 1 week, 3 months...), and research the list of nutrients that fall under deficiencies or under excesses. Review your consumption levels and find the specific nutrients that could be the cause.  TCT provides you additional reference data to find the foods rich in the nutrient(s) you may need more of or less of.

Notes

• It is important to remember that this dashboard feature averages your consumption over a 30-day period.  If you've only logged a few meals during that time, the data will not be very useful.  It is best to consistently log your foods and symptoms to improve the accuracy of the analysis.
• This section will only show "common" symptoms and will not show "custom" symptoms.  There is no way for us to use our data sources (in this case, National Institutes of Health) to find nutritional correlations to a custom named symptom.  However, you still need to log your custom symptom because the Symptom Food Correlations feature will run an analysis to find foods, ingredients, or allergens that could be the cause.

Conclusion

The Symptom-Nutrient Correlation feature on the Dashboard provides a quick reference of suspect nutrients that could be the cause of your health symptom(s).  Your logged symptom is immediately correlated to known nutrient consumption root causes followed by an analysis of your consumption data.  For the most accurate analysis, you must consistently log your meals so that your intake averages are accurately depicted allowing you to better identify and tackle the right suspect nutrient.  To see the actual consumption data, use the arrow in the symptom box to navigate to the Symptom-Nutrient Analysis page.  There you can search nutrients associated with your symptom and see your consumption levels.  You can also analyze different analysis periods to see more near-term levels (e.g., average consumption over the last week), or look more long-term (e.g., average consumption levels over the last six months).

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