My project is investigating the effects that childhood
obesity has on bone mineralization. I did not come into research with a project
in mind, I just knew that after my stepfather passed away of colorectal cancer
my freshman year of college, that I wanted to know if I was interested enough
in research to want to pursue finding ways to preventing colorectal cancer
medically. It was after talking to my introduction to nutrition professor, Dr.
Sina Gallo, about potential research opportunities that she informed me of this
project where I could analyze data from her larger project to find out if
childhood obesity has an effect on bone mineralization.
This project was instantly interesting to me as I am
pursuing a career in medicine, in hopes of becoming a Pediatrician. Knowing
that this project would allow me to exclusively evaluate data for children I
knew that the results from this research could be beneficial for me when
entering the medical field. In addition, being able to work on this project and
carrying out the research process will allow me to evaluate how much interest I
have in research and whether I can do clinical research on colorectal cancer
and ways to prevent it in the future.
Throughout the semester, what I do on a weekly basis
changes. At the beginning of my project, most of what I did involved preparing
for data collection and collecting data. I would assist several professors and
graduate students in an intervention known as the Child Health Exercise and
Wellness study. This study is a lifestyle intervention program geared toward
treating childhood diabetes in Hispanic families. Here I would be present
during 24-hour food recall interviews, collect anthropometric data, and assist
with the dual x-ray absorptiometry for bone and adipose tissue data. Currently,
I am analyzing that data by categorizing the data in tables and running the
appropriate statistical tests to obtain results. I mainly run the statistical
tests on my own after discussing appropriate testing with my mentor. During the
time that I am not meeting with my mentors, I am analyzing the statistical
results and writing up the results found. Currently, I am finalizing my poster
to present at OSCAR’s Summer Research Celebration.
One thing that I discovered this week is that, the results
we would expect are actually the opposite. For example, when graphing the data,
it seems as though with an increase in Calcium consumption there is a decrease
in bone mass density. Of course analysis is still taking place.
