{"id":6166,"date":"2016-10-19T14:44:35","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T14:44:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/needtoknow\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2016-10-19T14:44:35","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T14:44:35","slug":"is-chocolate-a-food-a-problem-in-pubmed-2016-update-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lib.uiowa.edu\/combo\/2016\/10\/19\/is-chocolate-a-food-a-problem-in-pubmed-2016-update-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Chocolate A Food? A Problem In PubMed \u2013 2016 Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"chocolatebgfffcrop3\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Because most plant-based foods are under “plants” instead of “food” in PubMed, articles on chocolate may not be retrieved in a search for Food.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Eric Rumsey, Janna Lawrence and Xiaomei Gu<\/p>\n

As we\u2019ve <\/span>written<\/span><\/a>, searching for plant-based foods (PBFs) in PubMed is difficult because of the way the MeSH system is organized. This is especially the case because because in most cases PBFs are treated as plants rather than food.<\/span><\/p>\n

One result of treating plant-based foods as plants is that the MeSH term is usually the botanical plant name; in the case of chocolate it\u2019s Cacao<\/em>. This is usually not a serious problem when searching for specific substances because the common food name maps to the botanical MeSH term.<\/p>\n

A more serious consequence of treating plant-based foods as plants instead of foods is that they are usually not in any food-related explosion<\/a>, but only in the Plants<\/em> explosion. So the only occurrence of chocolate (Cacao<\/em>) is here:<\/p>\n

Plants\r\n   Angiosperms\r\n      Sterculiaceae\r\n         Cacao<\/pre>\n
The reason this is a problem is because articles on chocolate\/Cacao<\/em> will not be retrieved in a search for Food<\/em>. So, for example, if you do a general search for food-related causes of migraine, you will not retrieve this article:<\/p>\n
Chocolate is a migraine-provoking agent
\nJournal: Cephalalgia
\nhttp:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/1860135<\/a><\/p>\n
This is not retrieved by searching for food because Cacao<\/em> is not in the Food<\/em> explosion. More broadly, however, it\u2019s also not retrieved\u00a0by the\u00a0Diet, Food, and Nutrition<\/em><\/a>\u00a0explosion.<\/span><\/p>\n
Here are several other articles on health and medical aspects of chocolate that are not retrieved<\/a> by the\u00a0broad Diet, Food, and Nutrition<\/em> explosion<\/span>:<\/p>\n