SCI 1015 Life Science Finding a Health Claim Essay I attached my assignment below.Please send it by Tomorrow July 19, 8 p.m. (USA – Eastern Time Zone) Heal

SCI 1015 Life Science Finding a Health Claim Essay I attached my assignment below.Please send it by Tomorrow July 19, 8 p.m. (USA – Eastern Time Zone) Health Claims Project: Rough Draft
Now that you have found a health claim, critiqued the health claim, and done a little bit of research
on your health claim, I would now like you to write a paper about the health claim and your
critique. Basically, you are going to take the first three assignments and write a three (3) page
paper on your health claim and the study you analyzed. This paper should be submitted to the
turnitin.com link above by the end of Week 7!
Paper guidelines:
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The organization of your paper should be background information, the details of the
original study you analyzed, your critique of the study, and a conclusion paragraph.
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Use 12 point Times New Roman font
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1 inch margins on every page
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Provide a work cited page including all references used in the paper. This should be done
using
MLA
format.
This
website
will
help
you
get
started:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/06/
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Be sure to cite your references within the text of your paper. If you don’t do this, you will
be
plagiarizing
and
will
be
penalized
accordingly.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/02/
•
Direct quotes should not be used. In scientific writing, direct quotes are rarely ever used.
That being said, if you use information from a source that is not common knowledge, you
still need to cite it as you would a direct quote.
SCI 1015 – INTRODUCTION TO LIFE SCIENCE – HEALTH CLAIM
Health Claim Assignment #1
Finding a Health Claim
For our term paper, we will be looking at various health claims and the studies that have been done to prove or
disprove the health claims.
What is a Health Claim? A health claim is a statement that claims something about your health. For example:
“Cheerios decrease total blood cholesterol” or “Colgate Total whitens teeth and prevent cavities.”
Over the course of the term, you will be analyzing a current health claim within a journal. You will choose a
health claim that has been tested by scientists, critique the research done by scientists, research a little bit about
the health claim on your own, and then compile your work into a research paper.
Your assignment is to find a newspaper or magazine article that discusses a study of a health claim. You must
make sure the article answers the following questions:
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What is the health claim?
Who conducted the study?
What was the sample size?
Who was the claim tested on? (Females, males, certain age group, etc.)
What was the experimental group and what was the control group?
What did the researchers measure?
What are the reasons given for the results of the health claim?
Cite your article correctly using MLA format.
If your article does not answer all of these questions, you will need to find another article.
Some good places to find articles:
www.sciencedaily.com
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/health/index.html
www.medicalnewstoday.com
For Assignment #1, Please find an article and answer the questions on the following page. Each question
is worth 1 point each.
1. What is a health claim? Please include the URL of your article here as well.
The health claim is that “A healthy diet containing foods low in sodium and high in potassium may reduce the
risk of high blood pressure, a risk factor for stroke and heart disease
(https://www.unlockfood.ca/en/Articles/Nutrition-Labelling/Decoding-the-Nutrition-Label-Health-Claims-andNu.aspx).
2. Who conducted the study?
The Health Canada regulations conducted the health claim. It conducted the claim to allow diet-related
companies to make food labels to draw attention to a relationship between the medical condition/disease and
diet.
3. What was the sample size?
The sample size was approximately 10,000 people. Most of the people used in the sample are the people aged
45 years and above. The kind of people is most likely to be faced with medical complications such as high
blood pressure and heart attack.
4. Who was the claim tested on?
The claim was tested on aged people above 45 years. These people attracted the claim due to the fact that they
have a high chance of being diagnosed with heart diseases and high blood pressure. Most of these people were
women. This group was targeted because they don’t know the importance of consuming foods low in sodium
and high in potassium contents (Dietitians of Canada).
5. What was the experimental group?
The group that was responsible for receiving the variables for testing was the medical officers at Heath Canada
Regulation body. The analyzed the sample of the people selected for their chances of been diagnosed with heart
attacks and high blood pressure. They used various scientific procedure to test the samples to detect the effect of
high sodium and low potassium in human bodies.
6. What was the control group?
In that case, the control group was the companies that are responsible for producing foodstuff that is rich in
sodium and potassium. These companies obtained information about the effects of high sodium and low
potassium content in food. They used the information to produces food that is healthier to people and, more so,
the elderly population.
7. What did the researcher measure?
The researcher measured whether the health claim has met specific criteria that are set by Health Canada. The
researcher wanted to ensure that this claim is true and accurate. They argued that some food staff produced by
different companies might not have a health claim despite meeting the criteria. This is because the amount of
sodium and potassium content used is not measured. The researchers also measured whether food-producing
companies could meet this health claim (Dietitians of Canada).
8. What were the outcomes of the research?
The search showed that many people above 40 years are likely to be diagnosed with high blood pressure and
heart attacks, among other diseases caused by food chemicals. It identified that these people consume a lot of
sodium without their knowledge because companies introduce the element without measuring the recommended
amount set by the Heath Canada regulations (Dietitians of Canada). Therefore, the experimental group’s
recommendations have made the food-producing companies adopt the truth of the health claim, attract many
customers, and gain the trust of the customers. This increased sales hence profit maximization.
9. What are the reasons given for the results of the health claim?
The reason is that an individual should look for food that is part of Canada’s food guidelines as their first step in
making a healthy eating choice. The health claim and the nutrient claims are used together with the nutrition
facts table as well as the ingredient list of sodium and potassium content that should be included in the food.
The reason being that they are additional tools that make it easier for an individual to choose healthy food from
the producing companies (Dietitians of Canada).
10. Cite your newspaper article in MLA style correctly.
Dietitians of Canada. “Decoding the Nutrition Label: Health Claims and Nutrient Content Claims – Unlock
Food.” Unlockfood.Ca, 2020, https://www.unlockfood.ca/en/Articles/Nutrition-Labelling/Decoding-theNutrition-Label-Health-Claims-and-Nu.aspx.
SCI 1015 – INTRODUCTION TO LIFE SCIENCE – HEALTH CLAIM
Health Claim Assignment #2
Critique your Health Claim and Think about Research
Part 1:
Now that we have all found health claims that we are going to focus on for the rest of the term, we need to
critique the experiments done to see if we think that the health claim is credible.
You will write a short paragraph in which you point out parts of the experiment that you would change or where
you think the scientists could have improved upon their experiment. You can also include areas of further
research for the researchers as well.
One possible improvement to the study that I can suggest is to increase the sample size. While 10,000 is not a
small number of participants for a study, increasing the number of participants would help in increasing the
accuracy and reliability of the findings. Increasing the sample size would also allow the findings of the study to
be applicable to a larger part of the population, especially if the participants are obtained from different regions.
Additionally, I think it is important to increase the number of male participants, as males are generally more
predisposed to cardiovascular diseases than females.
The type of study could also have been modified given the nature of the health claim; the researchers could
have also conducted a case control study, wherein they select the participants that fit their selection criteria (ex.
>45 years old, male/female, etc.) first and then retrospectively investigate their exposure to high-sodium/lowpotassium diet. They can then check which of the participants are currently diagnosed with hypertension, and
determine whether there is an associated risk for hypertension with high-sodium/low-potassium diet. The
presence of this risk can be determined by calculating for the odds ratio. It would be easier to obtain a larger
sample size with this kind of research since there is no need to collect samples from the participants; data may
be obtained from their health records alone.
Part 2:
Assignment 3 is going to require you to do some independent research. I would like you to list 3-4 keywords
that you want to research about your health claim using search engines (both Google and database searches).
1.
2.
3.
4.
Hypertension
Dietary sodium
DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension)
Kidney dysfunction
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The health claim is that a low-sodium and high-potassium diet would reduce the
risk for hypertension which itself is a risk factor for stroke and heart disease
(Dietitians of Canada).
The criteria set by the WHO for excessive dietary sodium consumption is >5 g per
day (Grillo et al., p. 1).
Excessive sodium consumption is linked to increased blood pressure and
increased risk for cardiovascular diseases (Grillo et al., p. 1).
In contrast, reduced sodium intake is linked to reduced blood pressure and
reduced risk for cardiovascular diseases (Grillo et al., p. 1).
Association of increased sodium intake with increased blood pressure is higher in
hypertensive individuals as well as older individuals (Mente et al., p. 605).
In contrast, potassium intake was inversely associated with blood pressure, as
blood pressure decreased with increased intake (Mente et al., p. 605).
Consequently, there is also a linear association with the sodium-to-potassium ratio
and blood pressure, meaning that individuals with high sodium intake and low
potassium intake experience a significantly high increase in blood pressure (Mente
et al., p. 606-607).
The benefits of reduced sodium intake may be felt by individuals who are already
hypertensive as well as by those with normal blood pressure (Grillo et al., p. 1).
Sodium is believed to exert its hypertensive effect by increasing water retention in
arterial vessels leading to an increased blood volume. In response, the kidneys
may detect this change and increase the excretion of salt and water. Due to the
increased hemodynamic load and increased plasma sodium levels, various
adverse effects can occur on macrovascular and microvascular levels (Grillo et al.,
p.1-2).
While it is generally accepted that decreasing sodium intake will also decrease the
risk for hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases, studies have shown that
there this association is not linear. This means that exceedingly low sodium intake
may also lead to poor patient prognosis (Grillo et al., p. 2).
Sodium is an important cation for various processes in the body, and sodium levels
are also maintained by neural mechanisms and homeostatic systems. As such, it
is likely that sodium levels in the body must be maintained at an optimal range,
outside of which adverse effects would occur including cardiovascular problems
(Grillo et al., p. 2).
The global average for individual sodium intake is around 3-6 grams per day
(O’donnell et al., p.613).
Using sodium excretion to represent sodium intake, an international cohort study
conducted in 2014 found that the optimal range for sodium intake with the lowest
risk for cardiovascular diseases and mortality was 3-6 grams per day. Outside of
this range, there is increased risk for morbidity and mortality, and low sodium
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intake in particular was found to increase the risk for both patients with
hypertension and those without (O’donnell et al., p. 615-616).
Meanwhile, cardiovascular mortality was also observed to decrease among
individuals who increased their potassium intake and reduced their sodium intake
as well (O’donnell et al., p. 620).
In particular, potassium intake greater than 1.5 grams per day was observed to be
associated with decreased risk for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality
compared to potassium intake less than 1.5 grams per day (O’donnell et al., p.
620).
To address the issue of increasing cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension
and coronary artery disease, as well as other metabolic conditions like diabetes
and obesity, the National Institute of Health funded several research projects to
develop effective dietary interventions to address hypertension. They found that
dietary interventions were able to effectively decrease blood pressure, and so the
Dietary Approaches To Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet was developed (Challa).
Several clinical trials have shown that DASH diet lowers cholesterol, saturated fats,
and blood pressure, and also lowers the risk for cardiovascular and metabolic
disorders like stroke, Diabetes Mellitus Type 2, and obesity (Challa).
The DASH diet involves reduced sodium intake and increased intake of potassium,
magnesium, and calcium, making it an optimal diet for people suffering from heart
failure (Challa).
The DASH diet emphasizes increased vegetable and fruit consumption, increased
fresh food consumption, and reduced sodium intake, specifically to 1500 mg per
day (Challa).
Specifically, it is recommended that a DASH diet includes five servings of
vegetables per day, five meals with fruits per day, seven servings of carbohydrates
per day, two servings of low-fat dairy products per day, a maximum of two servings
of lean meat per day, and consumption of nuts and seeds 2-3 times in a week
(Challa).
The source of the nutrients or in other words, the types of food are also important.
For example, carbohydrates should come from green leafy vegetables, whole
grains, low glycemic index fruits, and legumes and beans. Fat intake should be in
the form of “good” fats which promote High Density Lipoprotein increase and
reduce Low Density Lipoprotein levels such as olive oil and fish rich in omega-3
fatty acids (Challa).
Works Cited
Challa, Hima J. “DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension).” StatPearls
[Internet].,
U.S.
National
Library
of
Medicine,
23
May
2020,
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK482514/.
Dietitians of Canada. “Decoding the Nutrition Label: Health Claims and Nutrient Content
Claims
Unlock
Food.”
Unlockfood.Ca,
2020,
https://www.unlockfood.ca/en/Articles/Nutrition-Labelling/Decoding-the-Nutrition-LabelHealth-Claims-and-Nu.aspx.
Grillo, Andrea, et al. “Sodium Intake and Hypertension.” Nutrients, vol. 11, no. 9, 2019, p.
1970., doi:10.3390/nu11091970.
Mente, Andrew, et al. “Association of Urinary Sodium and Potassium Excretion with Blood
Pressure.” New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 371, no. 7, 2014, pp. 601–611.,
doi:10.1056/nejmoa1311989.
O’donnell, Martin, et al. “Urinary Sodium and Potassium Excretion, Mortality, and
Cardiovascular Events.” New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 371, no. 7, 2014, pp. 612–
623., doi:10.1056/nejmoa1311889.

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