Comparison of Answers between ChatGPT and Human Dieticians to Common Nutrition Questions

Background. More people than ever seek nutrition information from online sources. The chatbot ChatGPT has seen staggering popularity since its inception and may become a resource for information in nutrition. However, the adequacy of ChatGPT to answer questions in the field of nutrition has not been investigated. Thus, the aim of this research was to investigate the competency of ChatGPT in answering common nutrition questions. Methods. Dieticians were asked to provide their most commonly asked nutrition questions and their own answers to them. We then asked the same questions to ChatGPT and sent both sets of answers to other dieticians (N = 18) or nutritionists and experts in the domain of each question (N = 9) to be graded based on scientific correctness, actionability, and comprehensibility. The grades were also averaged to give an overall score, and group means of the answers to each question were compared using permutation tests. Results. The overall grades for ChatGPT were higher than those from the dieticians for the overall scores in five of the eight questions we received. ChatGPT also had higher grades on five occasions for scientific correctness, four for actionability, and five for comprehensibility. In contrast, none of the answers from the dieticians had a higher average score than ChatGPT for any of the questions, both overall and for each of the grading components. Conclusions. Our results suggest that ChatGPT can be used to answer nutrition questions that are frequently asked to dieticians and provide encouraging support for the role of chatbots in offering nutrition support.