I have to come up with a theoretical experiment that would test whether the consumption of a certain food, i.e. strawberries is related to having a healthy heart. My plan was to measure the health of a person's heart prior to the study through EKG, cardiac workup, etc. and then have several different people eat differing amounts of strawberries all the while monitoring their cardiac processes throughout the experiment; however i wasn't sure if this is a sound experimental design. could someone provide me with some feedback on whether or not this would be feasible? it's only theoretical, i'm not going to actually conduct it. Also, would an EKG really show the health of one's heart, I know it shows rate, rhythm, intervals, etc. but I wasn't sure if there would be a more effective way to test the health of a heart.

Question

Biologygeek · Answer

like i.e. stress test?

PsyDAG · Answer

A stress test is when the body's systems are pushed almost to their limits either chemically or by extensive exercise. All the while the heart and lungs are being measured. Medical staff are present to make sure that no problems arise. The measurements indicate if problems are likely to arise under less controlled stress conditions. If you want more information, Google "stress test."

For your experiment, you can have varying amount of strawberries (or extracts from strawberries so subjects don't have to eat that much), but don't forget to have a control group with no strawberries. All groups need to be equated in terms of other factors that might effect heart health (exercise, other aspects of diet, sleep, etc.).

Cardiac monitoring can be done at spefic intervals, at the beginning and each following month for example.

I hope this helps. Thanks for asking.