PONE-D-21-23343FOOD FREQUENCY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR FOODS HIGH IN SODIUM: VALIDATION WITH THE TRIADS METHODPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Souza,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. Firstly, we would like to apologize for the delay in processing your manuscript. It has been exceptionally difficult to secure reviewers to evaluate your study. We have now received one completed review, which is available below. The reviewer has raised significant scientific concerns about the study and has indicated that extensive revisions are required.

Please note that we have only been able to secure a single reviewer to assess your manuscript. We are issuing a decision on your manuscript at this point to prevent further delays in the evaluation of your manuscript. Please be aware that the editor who handles your revised manuscript might find it necessary to invite additional reviewers to assess this work once the revised manuscript is submitted. However, we will aim to proceed on the basis of this single review if possible.

After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jul 08 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

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• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Miquel Vall-llosera Camps

Senior Editor

PLOS ONE

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When you resubmit, please ensure that you provide the correct grant numbers for the awards you received for your study in the ‘Funding Information’ section.

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https://www.gov.br/capes/pt-br

https://fapitec.se.gov.br/

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."

Please provide an amended statement that declares *all* the funding or sources of support (whether external or internal to your organization) received during this study, as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now.  Please also include the statement “There was no additional external funding received for this study.” in your updated Funding Statement. 

Please include your amended Funding Statement within your cover letter. We will change the online submission form on your behalf.

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Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: "This study was partially financed by the Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa e a Inovação Tecnológica do Estado de Sergipe (Fapitec/SE/Brasil) [Research and Technological Innovation Support Foundation in the State of Sergipe] and the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES/Brasil) [Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel], financing code 001, PROMOB, process no. 88881.157882/2017-01.

https://www.gov.br/capes/pt-br

https://fapitec.se.gov.br/

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript."

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The article addresses an important field of nutritional research. Evaluating the relative validity of a dietary assessment method is of great importance when studying the potential impact of diet exposures on health outcomes. The authors constructed an FFQ for foods high in sodium and proposed a validation protocol over a 6-month period of dietary data collection complemented by four 24-hour recalls and two 24-hour urinary excretion for sodium analysis. The FFQ was reproductible but not valid. Despite the good statistical procedures adopted, the writing is not always fluid and sometimes repetitive. The description of the study protocol is not clear. In addition, it is not always clear what each test adds to the overall evaluation of level of validity, which could be made clearer in the method section. Another concern I have is related to the 'per se' construction of FFQ that was done previously with another sample; so, in the middle of the methodology, the authors describe basically another study (not mentioned before) and confuse the reader. Important decisions on how FFQ was built are not provided in the text.

Very important: The English needs considerable attention.

Introduction:

1. I suggest deleting the first two paragraphs and getting straight to the point. In the last paragraph, authors could justify why this study was done and, especially to investigate sodium in that region of Brazil. (why a specific FFQ is needed to that region)

Methods

2. I believe that the authors could benefit from checking the manuscript construction of previous FFQ validation studies. As mentioned above, the writing is not fluid and sometimes repetitive. First, provide an overall description of the (i) previous protocol to design the FFQ; (ii) the 6-month protocol to the FFQ validation: FFQ, rec24h, urine collection (in a 6-month period, when each instrument was applied/data was collected, providing the interval period among them).

3. In the sentence: “Each volunteer answered three 24hR, with a minimum and maximum interval of 15 and 45 days, respectively, and one of 24hR covered one weekend day.” How was the 15-45-day interval decided? Does it depend on the availability of the participant?

4. Do FFQ and Rec24h were paper-based methods? Were both a face-to-face interview?

5. Very important: do not describe “researchers” when referring to those people that collected the data in the field work; in this case, I would recommend to describe they as “research assistants” or “assistants”. It is better to restrict the term 'researchers' to those responsible for the study protocol and who wrote the manuscript.

6. How many research assistants and nutritionists conducted the field work? Was the team composed of undergrad and grad students? Those who applied the dietary instruments had any background in nutrition & dietetics?

7. Examples of information that seems repetitive in the text:

(a) All the subjects who agreed to participate in the study received information on the study and signed the Free and Informed Consent Form.

(b) The participants signed the Free and Informed Consent Form, allowing their voluntary participation,

(a) All researchers had been trained and supervised by nutritionists.

(b) Nutritionists trained and supervised the anthropometric measurements to ensure higher precision and accuracy of the data.

8. Rewrite the sentence: To assess daily sodium intake, to the 24hR estimate was added the amount of sodium from added salt.

9. Briefly describe the data collected from the socioeconomic questionnaire applied. Age, sex, occupation, etc.

10. Provide more details on the multiple pass method applied in the current protocol.

11. Validation paragraph: It does not add additional information. In the way described, this paragraph can be deleted.

12. How was the information of the dietary intake of rec24h and FFQ entered in NutWin? Food intake data entered one-by-one? who and how many people entered these data? There was any quality control in the data entered? how portion sizes were defined? The same questions is applied to FFQ.

13. Describe more about the MSM. What this method proposes and how?

Results:

14. It calls my attention that the sample studied had higher education but low income. Who were they? Undergrad students or staff personnel? It is important to describe it in method section.

15. Table 1. Replace 'gender' by 'sex'. sex = biologic nature of being female or male. gender = social role construction of being male or female. If you are analyzing urinary excretion, it is more relevant that you provide the information on biology. Also, replace 'nutrition status' by 'body mass index (kg / m2)'.

16. Replace “CI95%” by 95% CI

17. I think authors can think about a better presentation on tables.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PONE-D-21-23343R1Food frequency questionnaire for foods high in sodium: validation with the triads methodPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Souza,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

The reviewers highlighed the great quality of the new version of the manuscript. However, one of them highlighted some methodological information are required and are not described in the manuscript. All comments adressed to authors are describe below.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 12 2022 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Ana Elisa Madalena Rinaldi, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The current version of the manuscript had a great improvement from previous one. However, there are still some gaps to be described in the Methods section, considering that this is a methodological study, and it may be used as a reference for future studies in Brazil.

Methods:

Sodium biomarkers:

1. Please describe the instructions provided for participants of how to collect 24-h urine samples. Also, provide a reference for it.

2. The reference methods applied to verify the completeness of urine samples are not clear. First, is there a reference of less than 400 ml/day for completeness? Second, the study of Charlton KE et al 2008 (21) used multiple parameters, as volume of urine less than 500 ml/day and creatinine 0.2–0.3 mmol kg/day. These parameters and references are very important considering that urine provided the biomarker. If author be more rigid to accept a sample as valid (e.g., equal or more 500 ml/day + creatine output >0.2 mmol kg/day), how many samples would be valid in both methods? Did you test whether concordance with dietary method had improved?

3. Sociodemographic data. Please indicate the currency conversion of Brazilian currency to USD$ at the time of the study.

4. Anthropometric measurements: indicate the equipment (registered brand) of each anthropometric tool (electronic scale, stadiometer, and tape)

5. Food composition analysis of FFQ: Has NutWin a specific interface for FFQ calculation? Or were all food items converted to daily portion size in order to be entered in this software? Please, describe in methods.

6. Statistics: Which method was applied to calculate energy adjustment?

7. Line 200: Correct typing mistake “With Rregard to nutritional 200 status…”

8. Table 1: present variables summarized as mean first, then after the categorical ones; Use only 1 decimal to summarize age

9. Results: Line 209-211: Adequacy in urine sample collection: First, there is no need to repeat the parameter in parenthesis already described in methods; second, indicate how many were adequate according to volume and how many according to creatinine value. Also, as described above, test whether being more rigid in urine assessments could improve the final results with dietary methods.

Reviewer #2: Thank you for addressing all the comments from the reviewers. The suggestions were incorporated to the manuscript.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: Yes: Juliana dos Santos Vaz

Reviewer #2: No

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[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.

PONE-D-21-23343R2Questionário de frequência alimentar para alimentos ricos em sódio: validação com o método das tríadesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Souza,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

 All the previous queries have been addressed, there are only a few minor details that need to be taken care of. Once these are done, I consider that the ms can be accepted.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 03 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Nicoletta Righini, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The authors addressed all comments raised in a previous round of review. The current version of the manuscript now reports all methodological aspects required in a validation study.

I just request some minor corrections in the text, and 1-2 other adjustments in tables and text.

Please add spacing in the following passages:

Line 42: “However, Bshave limitations…” = B have

Line 43: “…Blevels…” = B levels

Line 47: “… 24hR or FR, and Bs,…” = B (all other instruments described in this sentence are in singular version)

Line 58: “… to2009…”

Line 62: “… remainscarce”

Line 75: “… 2018.Fifty…”

Line 85: “… period of 6months..” = 6 months

Line 89: Fig1 Data collectionprocess

Line 94: “…24hR and FFQ-FHS survey,” = there is no need the term “survey”

Line 96: “… was completed after the 24hRviaface-to-face…”

Line 123: “After 3months…” = 3 months

Line 124: “…24hRsusing…”

Line 140: “[10]to determine”

Line 164: “…precision of 1millimeter” = 1 millimeter

Line 325: “… notwithstanding…”

Line 370: “… duringin-person interviews,…”

Line 386: “… over a period of 6months” = 6 months

Line 77: Please, reedit the sentence: “We excluded pregnant and lactating women…"

Other minor corrections:

Please review in all Tables and Bland and Altman figure the following: Clear state in the tables when the “adjusted” means “energy adjusted”, otherwise it means traditional statistical adjustments for covariates.

Line 296: “… which eventually lost significance after adjustment.” Does it mean energy adjustment? Please specify in the text.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Juliana Vaz

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Questionário de frequência alimentar para alimentos ricos em sódio: validação com o método das tríades

PONE-D-21-23343R3

Dear Dr. Souza,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Nicoletta Righini, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

All the comments were addressed by the authors and the minor corrections were performed.

Reviewers' comments: