Question 2
This study went to great lengths to control the participants’
diet including preparing all their meals and hiring a Korean chef to prepare
the Korean food. But, considering there is very limited research about a
traditional Korea diet and the DGA and their effects on heart disease how
strong of a conclusion can we make from this study?
posted by Unknown @ 10:23 AM
13 comments
13 Comments:
It was very intriguing to see how closely monitored the diet of the participants was in this study. While the results were encouraging in showing the benefits of a traditional Korean diet for heart patients, I also believe more research needs to be performed. I think more questions regarding the diet need to be asked. What components do you think cause better health? Does it have something to do with their greater intake of fermented foods? Is it because they eat more plant-based meals? Or is it just the overall health of the diet? Another thing that came to mind is the interpretation of the traditional Korean diet. Is it possible that a Korean chef cooking for participants of a similar study make different foods and therefore show different results?
As with other topics, we have to be wary in taking the results of this study to be printed in stone. Science always requires extensive research and repeating experiments in order to draw a sound conclusion. Therefore, we cannot draw a strong conclusion based off this one study. However, considering they extensive effort was made to ensure consistency among participants' diet, we can use the results of this study to encourage further research into the effect of a traditional Korean diet and the DGA and their effects on heart disease. We also have to ask ourselves, how useful/widely applicable are the results for Americans when it comes to examining the effects of a traditional Korean diet. Perhaps we should examine the theme of the diet such as plant-based, low sodium, etc rather than what a traditional Korean chef would make.
Very controlled research is always a good first step to determine if something is even worth trying to study in more life-like (less controlled conditions). This study shows there may in fact be some merit to recommending a more Korean style diet pattern, indicating the need for further exploration. My major concern is how the diet would become Americanized in practice. Think about pizza, Mexican food, and even just the American portion sizes. There is a high risk for distortion of the recommendations as they reach the public. I’ve had real pizza in Italy, and it is far from a stuffed crust supreme meat lover’s pizza. Having a Korean chef come in ensured authentic Korean meal preparations were followed. For controlling the study to bolster the strength of the conclusions we can draw (eventually with more confidence), using the chef was a wise decision. In practice, most people would not have the same skill level or knowledge of what Korean food really is, as I mentioned in my first answer. With more studies under well controlled conditions we could make a more well-rounded judgement on the issue. After sufficient evidence to be more confident in the conclusion, we could move on to see if this is something practical to actually do for people. The article accurately mentioned in their conclusions how the dietary patterns are what makes the difference. A more practical application may be isolating (with further research) and then recommending the key patterns within the Korean diet that seem to be most effective.
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As Gina said, having the participants' diets being so controlled and bringing in a Korean chef to prepare the meals did bring more authenticity to the study to ensure they were eating the same things and that they were in fact eating traditional Korean foods. However, there needs to be much more research before a traditional Korean diet's effect on heart disease can really be fully understood and proven. Every piece of research literature is a step in the right direction of finding concluding results, so this will be a strong addition to the current literature.
As Amanda and others have mentioned, we do not know which component(s) of the diet is beneficial. Maybe the fermented foods and macronutrient distribution make a bigger impact than we believe. It is also difficult because the diet was so controlled it is hard to know if we can realistically replicate these results in everyday life. Yes, I agree with you ladies that there needs to be more controlled studies before we can make any strong conclusions. I thought this study went to great lengths to provide accurate results which made it unique and made me more convinced of the results despite the small sample size.
I agree with Vivian, research must be analyzed and repeated many times before conclusions can be drawn. I believe that the studied controlled for many variables but the next step would be to repeat the experiment and then examine the different components. After looking specifically at each factor then an explanation for the results will be revealed.
I think that as many of you have said more research always needs to be done to be able to properly assess the the effects the Korean diet has on heart disease. I think isolating different aspects of the Korean diet might be a good next step in research in order to try and isolate the foods that are causing the positive effects on the participants.I also think it should be noted that in order to maintain the diet properly and to make the experiment as controlled as possible a Korean chef had to prepare all the meals. This seems to suggest to me that the diet might be challenging for the average American to prepare on their own. Therefore, I think another experiment needs to be done to assess the level of difficulty preparing meals based on the Korean diet is and to assess adherence rates to the diet once the participants are responsible for preparing the meals by themselves.
Gina made an interesting point about how the Korean diet might be adapted and changed by Americans. I think Gina's point further justifies the need to isolate the ingredients in the Korean diet that are contributing to positive health benefits for patients with heart disease in order to be able to educate the American population on ingredients that should be a staple in their Korean diet and ingredients that are acceptable to manipulate or adapt for a more pleasurable taste.
Like most have mentioned, I think that the results of this study can be considered preliminary at best. I think it is interesting that so many have brought up the point of isolating different aspects of the diet to see which components are responsible for the beneficial effects.
I think that for research purposes it was a good idea for the research team to ensure consistency (as Viv put it) but I also think that such extreme consistency skews the application value of the results of this study. Sure in the highly controlled environment the Korean diet showed some benefits, but are these benefits still present if the guidelines are loosely followed? I think that is where the food component isolation research would come in. I think there is quite a bit of work to be done before we begin recommending these diets to clients for their heart health benefits.
I also think that it is a little ironic that to determine health benefits of a diet we must rigidly control dietary conditions, but in practice we often promote a significantly lesser level of control, and instead promote a more fluid balance of dietary moderation.
Although there is a limited amount of research examining the DGA and Korean diets I feel that there can still be a fairly strong conclusion about the potential cardiovascular benefits associated. There of course needs to be more exact research done before more definitive research conclusions can be drawn, however; generally speaking, the main principles and components of the diet that are heart healthy have been shown in previous research adding to the value of this study.
I think that Des brings up a very intriguing point about perceived health benefits of a diet and strict dietary controls and restrictions. Is the DGA or Korean diet healthier than a typical American diet? Probably. Do individuals that follow a typical American diet or Korean diet strictly adhere to this style of eating all the time or are they more flexible in their eating patterns? There are also those that include traditional American diet staples such as macaroni and cheese occasionally while also regularly including foods such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. Where does that fit in?
In the end, I feel that certain aspects of nutrition research are incredibly difficult to control and relate directly to real-world applications but are none-the-less extremely important to the significance of our field.
Most diet-based studies only show a single snapshot of physiological changes as a result of eating patterns. The intake of participants is controlled due to the nature of a scientific experiment; however, this creates an artificial environment that is likely not typical of any of the participant's true intake. Yes, these intake variables need to be controlled to increase validity of the data collected, but I think this creates a generic confounding variable for all dietary studies.
I feel uneducated on what all the Korean diet encompasses, and I feel like I would benefit from more qualitative research on the Korean diet, its typical components, and epidemiological trends of the Korean population. I attempted to complete some supplemental research online, but as Abby stated there is limited research on the Korean diet. I agree that more research needs to completed on this dietary pattern before science-based recommendations can be made.
After reading through the discussion, I thought Carly made a great point about performing studies where components of the diet are used in isolation. Perhaps that would shed some light on the importance of fermented foods and help us understand exactly how much is beneficial in the diet. I think it would also be interesting to compare the Korean diet to a plant-based diet and see if there are similar benefits.
Desiray also made an interesting point in discussing how realistic the results of the study are. While the participants’ diets were well controlled in the study, most people don’t eat a “perfect” diet in the real world. So are the results only valid when they are so tightly controlled, or can we still see results outside of a study?
I like Amanda's idea about comparing the effects of a traditional Korean diet to a vegetarian diet to examine their differences on the risk factors for cardiac patients. A plant based diet would probably be an easier diet to follow for most Americans since they are not restricted to a certain cuisine. If there are differences between the diets' effects, further studies can be conducted to determine which aspects of the two diets could attribute to the differences. Perhaps emphasizing fermented food products at every meal like in the traditional Korean diet could be the game changer from the plant-based diet alone. Very intriguing idea!
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