The feasibility and effectiveness of telenutrition for remote dietary consultation: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Telenutrition refers to using telehealth and telemedicine technologies to provide nutritional care and counselling to patients remotely. Studies found that telenutrition can be an effective tool for managing chronic diseases in primary care settings. This review was conducted to gather information on telenutrition feasibility and effectiveness. A comprehensive search was conducted via the Cochrane Library, PubMed, Google Scholar, EBSCo, and Scopus databases. Randomised controlled trials published until 2022 that assessed the feasibility and effectiveness of telenutrition outcomes were included. Three reviewers worked independently on study selection and risk of bias assessment. The PRISMA 2020 version checklist was used to report and review the selected articles. This review identified 19 Article History Received: 12 November 2024 Accepted: 12 February 2025 Keywords Effectiveness; studies on telenutrition intervention for weight loss, personalised nutrition and physical activity, diabetes care, metabolic syndrome, bone health care, organ transplant, haematological cancer, kidney disease, and age-related macular degeneration. Feasibility (n=21) was determined by recruitment rate, adherence rate, completion rate, and satisfaction. Six studies were rated as good to high adherence; eleven achieved >80% of the completed intervention, and eight showed a high satisfaction rate (78-98.6%) with telenutrition. The effectiveness (n=14) measured physiological and physical conditions. The overall meta-analysis indicates that telenutrition showed a moderate effect. A majority of the studies favoured telenutrition intervention where there were significant effects of telenutrition for some outcomes (weight changes, BMI, waist circumference, and triglyceride levels), but not others (HbA1c, fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, and blood pressure). Generally, telenutrition significantly improved BMI and waist circumference, yet there has been limited effectiveness in physiological conditions, such as in HbA1c, cholesterol, and blood pressure levels.