Description of the updated nutrition calculation of the Oxford WebQ questionnaire and comparison with the previous version among 207,144 participants in UK Biobank

PURPOSE: The Oxford WebQ is a web-based 24-h dietary assessment method which has been used in UK Biobank and other large prospective studies. The food composition table used to calculate nutrient intakes has recently been replaced with the UK Nutrient Databank, which has food composition data closer in time to when participants completed the questionnaire, and new dietary variables were incorporated. Here we describe the updated version of the Oxford WebQ questionnaire nutrient calculation, and compare nutrient intakes with the previous version used. METHODS: 207,144 UK Biobank participants completed ≥ 1 Oxford WebQs, and means and standard deviations of nutrient intakes were averaged for all completed 24-h dietary assessments. Spearman correlations and weighted kappa statistics were used to compare the re-classification and agreement of nutrient intakes between the two versions. RESULTS: 35 new nutrients were incorporated in the updated version. Compared to the previous version, most nutrients were very similar in the updated version except for a few nutrients which showed a difference of > 10%: lower with the new version for trans-fat (− 20%), and vitamin C (− 15%), but higher for retinol (+ 42%), vitamin D (+ 26%) and vitamin E (+ 20%). Most participants were in the same (> 60%) or adjacent (> 90%) quintile of intake for the two versions. Except for trans-fat (r = 0.58, κ = 0.42), very high correlations were found between the nutrients calculated using the two versions (r > 0.79 and κ > 0.60). CONCLUSION: Small absolute differences in nutrient intakes were observed between the two versions, and the ranking of individuals was minimally affected, except for trans-fat. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00394-021-02558-4.