DESIGNING YOUR OWN NUTRITION EXPERIMENT Just like other scientific disciplines,

Question

DESIGNING YOUR OWN NUTRITION EXPERIMENT Just like other scientific disciplines, factual nutrition information is based on experimental research that has been replicated many times by different scientists. Below, you will construct a realistic intervention study, using human volunteers, to answer a nutrition related question of your choice. Be sure to include as much detail as possible.

1. Your Question to be tested:

2. State your hypothesis concerning your above listed question

3. In testing your hypothesis, who will you recruit for your experiment? (Include things like age, gender, health status and the total number of subjects)

4. Briefly explain your experimental protocol. (Give as much detail about what you will do with your experimental subjects)

5. What variables will you test for? (What things are you going to measure?)

6. How do you plan to limit the subject bias? (How will you prevent your volunteers from reporting effects simply because they know they are participating in your experiment?)

7. What limitations do you foresee in carrying out this experiment?

Explanation / Answer

INTRODUCTION:

obesity has become a major cause and a riskfactor for human diseases. It has been regarded as an epidemic in the modern world society. Diseases like type 2 diabetes, stress anxiety, depression, cancer, heart and pulmonary diseases all are are associated with obesity and underling metabolic syndrome. Recently a very important biochemical molecule called  curcumin a active ingredient of turmeric the spice from plant Curcuma longa has made a entry into health world and its role as anticancer and anti-inflammatory agent has been studied, but its role in controling obesity bas been empirical and no studies have shown how it might alter the obesity hormones leptin and adiponectin. These hormones are produced in adipocytes and generally in obese patients adiponectin is decresed and leptin is increased.

So the question we have is "does dietary curcumin have role in altering leptin and adiponectin in obese patients?

Hypothesis: Dietary curcumin has a role in regulating the levels of leptin and adiponectin in obese patients

Patients recruitment: The study protocol is designed with consultation of a Biostatistician and appropriate sampling method is decided. In current study we recruited pateints from Indian ethnicity, from the age group of 18-35 years and both male and female candidates were selected. A total of 400 members including 200 males and 200 females were involved. The criteria for the individual to be selected as obese was BMI of 30kg/m2, waist circumference greater than 1080mm for males and 880kg/m2 for females. Patients with other associated confounding factors like diabetes, heart diseases, hypertension, cancer and HIV and any other morbidity we're excluded. Consent forms were signed from all patients and ethics clearance was sorted.

Experiment method: Both the male and female group was subdivided into treatment and control/placebo groups. From literature studies it was decided to use 8g/kg bodyweight of curcumin to be administered to treatment groups orally as the most effective method for period of 1 month. At the end of the month the serum levels of leptin and adiponectin were measured using hormone measuring commercial ELISA kits. The results were statistically compared for significant difference of mean between the placebo/ control group and treatment groups.

Variables tested: serum levels of leptin and adiponectin, anthropometric features that define obesity - BMI, waist circumference and lipid profiles.

plans to limit subject bias: selection of patients is done by random sampling methods and each group is compared with an age matched control group which recieved placebo instead of curcumin.

Limitations of the study if any: The possible limitation would be small sample size that is studied, small sample size generally cannot represent a whole population so larger population is required to generalize the effect of curcumin on obesity. Curcumin is water soluble and has low bioavailability in the intestines and it is reported to cause gastric troubles in some patients which would limit its total efficacy.

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