Gladys Block is a nutrition researcher who worked at the

National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...

Education and career

From July 1991 onward, Block worked at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

as a professor (and subsequently professor emerita) of Community Health and Human Development in the School of Public Health. In 1993 she founded NutritionQuest which produces assessments of diet and physical activity for researchers.

Block FFQ

During her time at the

(1982 to 1991), Block developed a semi-quantitative

food frequency questionnaire Food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) is a dietary assessment tool delivered as a questionnaire to estimate frequency and, in some cases, portion size information about food and beverage consumption over a specified period of time, typically the past m ...

(FFQ) that would later come to be known as the Block FFQ. The approach to questionnaire design was first described in a paper co-authored with Hartman, Dresser, Carroll, Gannon, and Gardner in 1986. Research by Block, Potosky, and Clifford on validation of the questionnaire was published in 1990. After leaving the National Cancer Institute in 1991, Block continued to work on the FFQ, offering it through the company, NutritionQuest, that she founded in 1993. Subsequent released versions include the Block 95 and Block 98 FFQs. A web version was also released and validated. The Block FFQ has been used in third-party research and has also been the subject of validation and comparison studies. The Block FFQ is the earliest of the currently widely used FFQs in the United States. Other semi-quantitative FFQs include the Diet History Questionnaire (DHQ) and NHANES (also developed at the National Cancer Institute) and the Harvard FFQ, developed by a team at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

led by

Walter Willett Walter C. Willett (born June 20, 1945) is an American physician and nutrition researcher. Currently, Willett is the Fredrick John Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and was the chair of its departm ...

Work

Vitamins

In 1992, Block's review of 15 epidemiological studies on cancer rates and intake of Vitamin C was mentioned in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

''. Block has been cited in media coverage of the debate around the efficacy of dietary multivitamin supplements in combating health risks including the risk of cancer, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension. Others taking a similar position as Block (in favor of dietary supplements) include Harvard professor

(designer of the Harvard FFQ), researcher Bruce N. Ames, and Michael Jacobson of the

Center for Science in the Public Interest The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit watchdog and consumer advocacy group that advocates for safer and healthier foods. History and funding CSPI is a consumer advocacy organization. Its f ...

. Those on the other side include

Marion Nestle Marion Nestle (born 1936) is an American molecular biologist, nutritionist, and public health advocate. She is the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health Emerita at New York University. Her research examines s ...

, Joan Gussow, Catherine Wotecki, Walter Mertz, and Edgar Miller.

Variety in diet

Block has led research on the variety in people's diet and its effects on people's nutrient consumption and health status. She has been cited on the subject in the ''

''.

Alive!

Block has developed a program called ALIVE that people can use to improve their diet and physical activity. The program and its spinoff, ALIVE-PD (to help prediabetics prevent diabetes) are currently offered through Turnaround Health, a division of NutritionQuest.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Block, Gladys American women nutritionists American nutritionists Living people Johns Hopkins University alumni UC Berkeley School of Public Health faculty Year of birth missing (living people)