La-la-la! Biology makes me so happy!
Biology? more like BYE-ology? don't worry you have come to the right place!
Baffled by some of the words? Check out the Key terms page
Clinical Obesity
overweight to a degree which causes medical complications
KEY CONCEPT:
Evaluation of evidence and the methods used to obtain the evidence for health claims made about lipids.
Evidence for health claims comes from research. Some of this research is more scientifically valid than others.
Above is a campaign on using a certain fruit for weight loss; consistently scientific information; in terms of what takes place in the body have been provided. This makes this seem a much more viable health claim
WHICH health claims are valid?
Key questions to consider for the strengths are:
•Is there a (negative or positive) correlation between intake of the lipid being investigated and rate of the disease or the health benefit?
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•If instead mean values are being compared how different are they? Has this difference been assessed statistically?
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•How widely spread is the data? This can be assessed by the spread of data points or the relative size of error bars. The more widely spread the data the smaller the significance can be placed on the correlation and/or the conclusion.
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n.b. it is easiest to consider strengths by looking at effectively drawn graphs.
What is an evaluation?
Evaluation = Make an appraisal by weighing up the strengths and limitations
Key questions to consider for the limitations are:
•Was the measure of the health a valid one? e.g. cholesterol levels in blood are more informative than body mass index
•How large was the sample size? Larger samples are more reliable.
•Does the sample reflect the population as a whole or just a particular sex, age, state of health, lifestyle or ethnic background?
•Was the data gathered from human or animal trials? If only done of animals how applicable are the findings?
•Were all the important control variables, e.g. level of activity, effectively controlled?
•Were the levels and frequency of the lipids (or substance studied) intake realistic?
•How rigorous were the methods used to gather data? e.g. If only a survey was used how truthful were the respondents?
