Quick! Save yourself!

...

I read an abstract this morning for a study entitled 'Sparing effects of selenium and ascorbic acid on vitamin C and E in guinea pig tissues.'

I'm currently reading the full article, somewhat incredulously. For anyone not familiar with their vitamins, you probably won't see at first glance the reason I spent a good five minutes reading the abstract and giggling. I even showed it to a colleague to make sure I wasn't missing some subtle hidden nuance. But apparently not.

Ascorbic acid is vitamin C.

The title and abstract so far suggest that 13 scientists spent a good deal of time and several dead guinea pigs to establish that there was less vitamin C in the tissues of guinea pigs fed less vitamin C. Wow. Giving animals an essential nutrient causes a raise in that nutrient's level in the animal? Rocket science!

I'm currently reading the full article to see if there's some pressing reason why this needed to be established. So there may well be a relieved post from me later - I'd hate to think that people really sit down and waste time, money, and small cute mammals with adorable squeaking noises on the blatantly stupid.

I recommend against holding your breath.

As a side note, I really hope they didn't use Ribena as their source of C.

The grass isn't greener on the streets

Just a quickie today, for anyone who has ever wondered whether those kids living on the streets are eating better than you. You know, what with all those three course meals and nutritious fresh vegies you can forage out of garbage bins and all.

A group of researchers has established that homeless kids in Toronto are 'nutritionally vulnerable' - that is, not as well fed as kids with homes and regular meals. Well, there's more research money gone on establishing the blindingly obvious.

It's probably unfair of me, but wouldn't that money have been better spent on buying those poor kids a sandwich?


Study is Tarasuk V et al. Homeless youth in Toronto are nutritionally vulnerable. J Nutr 2005 Aug;135(8):1926-33. Full text is available from the Nutrition Journal here.

Weighty matters

Time for Stealthflower's award for pointing out the blindingly obvious.
Today's imaginary trophy goes to the Canadian researchers who compared the nutrient intake between obese and non-obese kids and teens. They carefully quantifying the differences between the two groups in their methods, then discovered in their results that there was a statistically significance between the two groups in both weight AND Body Mass Index!

No, really?

It actually is both interesting and useful to compare the nturitional and vitamin intakes of the two groups, but do you really need to experiment to find that fat kids are fatter than non-fat kids?

Someone I work with has been known to say that common sense has to step in at some point. I'm still waiting for that point to arrive, me.


For the curious or pedantic, the study is: Gillis L & Gillis A. Nutrient inadequacy in obese and non-obese youth. Can J Diet Prac Res 2005;66(4)237-42. Pubmed abstract can be found here.