Yeah, it's fun to post threads with links http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-17/nsw-study-links-junk-food-to-memory-loss/5160860
*clicks on link* Hmm. That is interesting *closes link* Sees thread again but doesn't remember *opens link* hmm, that is interesting *closes link* sees thread repeat infinitely
"The team placed rats on a diet high in sugar and fat and compared their performance with rodents on a healthy diet." Wait, what? They used rats? I'm fairly sure rats aren't exactly the same as humans. (correct me if I'm wrong ) "Lead researcher Margaret Morris says the rats on the poor diet developed an impaired memory after just six days." Six days? Isn't that a bit early to come to conclusions? I'd expected at least a month, looking at a longer period of time. ""It's a little bit to early for us to say that two are causally related, but we believe that the inflammatory change is probably highly relevant for the cognitive decline," she said." Wait, so they aren't sure yet? Why speak about it already then? Who paid for this research? Also, did those researchers know which rats had a healthy diet en which had the junk food diet? And, finally, after this wall o' text, why do I have this feeling that this is going to be like those neutrinos? You know, those parts travelling faster than light?
Correct, rats are not the same as humans. However, they are used as a very common means of testing things that would be difficult/dangerous to test on humans. And I'm pretty sure the researchers were keeping track of healthy vs non-healthy rats, otherwise there'd be no point to the whole experiment. While it's good to question things, this seems like a pretty straightforward preliminary scientific study.
Might be due to higher metabolism rates as rats aren't the same as humans But there has been a self experiment with similar results: 30 days fast food only!! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Size_Me It usually is a good sign if a scientist is careful with his/her claims. There is nothing like 100% certainty. But if it's going to be published in a peer reviewed journal there is a good chance it is quality science.
It's all university research, so you can trust it pretty well. Although, it's not from Australias' best uni Anyways, they obviously would have conducted the tests for a long up, upwards of a month or more, but they are simply stating that they noticed changes within six days. And people have habits of saying they found something when they didn't. When CERN said they found the Higgs Boson, they actually hadn't, they only thought they had. Luckily, they had. Same thing with those particles that they saw travelling faster than light, turned out to be false
they use rats for a few reasons, 1. they are mammals so they have a similar body structure to us as well as all the same organs 2. most laboratory rats are those white kind you see in pet stores, which are specifically bred to fit the same genetype and have minimum defects meaning evidence across control groups is more conclusive. 3. rats have similar social structures to humans and are widely accepted by the scientific community to have the same overactive prefrontal cortex as humans and thus they are able to communicate more effectively and solve problems quicker then most mammals. (same reason why rodents are smarter then cats) 4. due to groups like peta and other animal rights activists science is limited in what it is allowed to use in actual application. rats are more readily accepted because they are commonly viewed as vermin. even with that subset there are groups trying to stop rodent testing. as far as this test goes i would like to see more data. i think what jaari was getting at is correlation does not equal causation. some questions would be how large was the control and test group? what environment was the test performed under? were the testers aware of which group was which? what was the previous diet of the rats? and a couple other things that this article didnt really include.
