Spanish population trends in Internet searches for information on different diets. / Tendencia de la población española de búsqueda en internet sobre información relacionada con diferentes dietas.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To use Google Trends to explore the trends of interest of the Spanish population regarding information related to different types of diets, focused on those that are popular and with evidence-based studies, over the last 10years. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The search trends referred to the terms «Mediterranean diet¼, «ketogenic diet¼, «low fat diet¼, «intermittent fasting¼ and «vegan diet¼ were analyzed. The relative search volumes (RSV) of the terms were compared. The direction of the trend was studied using the Spearman's correlation coefficient (SC). RESULTS: «Mediterranean diet¼ was the most widely searched term, with a median RSV of 16 (interquartile range [IQR] 6; range 8-100), though it exhibited a decreasing chronological trend (SC=-0.216). It was followed by «ketogenic diet¼, with an RSV of 8 (IQR 9; range 1-57); «vegan diet¼, with an RSV of 4 (IQR 5; range 0-16); «intermittent fasting¼, with an RSV of 2 (IQR 5; range 0-27), and «low fat diet¼, with an RSV of 1.16 (IQR 0; range 0-2). The term with the best correlation over time was «intermittent fasting¼ (SC=0.96), followed by «ketogenic diet¼ (SC=0.91) and «vegan diet¼ (SC=0.85). CONCLUSIONS: In Spain, the interest of the population in information about the Mediterranean diet is greater than for other diets. However, in recent years there has been a progressive increase in interest (measured as RSV) in other diets such as the ketogenic diet, vegan diet or intermittent fasting, and there has been a decrease in interest in the Mediterranean diet. The low fat diet does not generate interest in the Spanish population.