Why Search PubMed?
PubMed is the free interface for the premier biomedical database, MEDLINE. It was created & is maintained by the National Library of Medicine. PubMed contains both primary & secondary literature. Because it's a free to access, you can use it even when you leave the University of Michigan.
Articles in PubMed are indexed by MeSH (Medical Subject Headings), terms that have specific definitions within the database & help you to create more focused searches.
Running a Search
Enter your search terms, using synonyms, parentheses, & Boolean operators, in the main search bar at the top of the PubMed window, & click the Search button.
Search Results
Your results are listed on the Search Results page.
You can see that there are many results, including some that are not related to the question.
Search Tip - "Search Details"
What if your search results are not quite what you expected or they seem really off-base? On the Advanced page (link right below the search bar), check Search Details, to see how PubMed "translated" your search.
If at least one term for each concept in your search doesn't map to a MeSH term, you should rethink your search terms or contact the library for help.
Look at how some terms were "translated," for example, dietary intake mapped to eating. This is why the search results are so far off topic. We'll need to revise the search.
Revising Your Search
Putting dietary intake and food intake in quotation marks
("dietary intake" OR "food intake") AND (dairy products OR milk OR cheese OR yogurt)
will restrict this part of the search to those phrases. The phrases won't map to MeSH terms, but may provide a more focused set of results.
And that's exactly what happens.
Because there are still so many results, add United States to the search:
("dietary intake" OR "food intake") AND (dairy products OR milk OR cheese OR yogurt) AND United States