Two Pennington Biomedical Research Center scientists have invented a calorie-tracking smartphone app, which will be tested against the current “gold-standard” for calorie measurements under a four-year, $1.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.
The PortionSize app analyzes pictures of users’ meals and automatically lets them know how many calories they’ve eaten. Though it’s not yet commercially available, if the app proves itself against the gold standard, it will help researchers, clinicians and consumers by tracking how much food users are eating in real time.
“For consumers, counting calories is made even more difficult because portions—the amount of food in a meal or snack—have increased greatly over the last two-plus decades,” says Dr. John Apolzan, assistant professor and co-principal investigator of the study, in a prepared statement. “What people now consider a normal portion is generally too much for a single individual.”
Apolzan and Corby Martin, co-principal on the project, designed the app to help offset what the NIH calls “portion distortion,” giving users a more accurate way to gauge calorie consumption, with preliminary data showing PortionSize offers a promising and user-friendly approach.
The scientists plan to begin pilot testing the app sometime between mid-July and mid-August with roughly a dozen participants. They will then conduct three full studies over three years, starting in 2021, each of which will enroll approximately 40-50 people. Overall, around 150 participants will be recruited for the study. More information about the trials will be posted to www.pbrc.edu/clinical-trials.
