Future research using email communication is likely to benefit from wider public coverage but increased participation will no doubt bring 'junk' email. I propose that nutritionists need to engage in research using email sooner rather than later. Electronic innovations in research methods need to be tested and refined for legitimacy now, before the potential is discarded by the public intuitively as unsolicited mail. It is clear that, apart from email messages to request participation in a study, nutrition science could benefit from the replacement of conventional postal questionnaires with electronic questionnaires. This is comparable with the findings of the 'computer network' survey of Walsh et al.
Electronic questionnaires cost less in time and money to administer.
A scientist can produce a questionnaire that the respondent could fill in and return by email with a program like Microsoft Excel that captures the data into a spreadsheet for analysis. This could advance human nutrition as it would permit a greater throughput of samples and less error in re-keying data. Email gives the scientists greater control over the logistics of questionnaire despatch. Large mailshots of the same message are possible and most email packages allow the sender to confirm a message's delivery time and time of reading by the recipient. Email can not preserve the anonymity of the respondent.