Scientific_Methods t1_jdzxvhb wrote on March 28, 2023 at 12:49 PM

Reply to comment by and_dont_blink in Study Suggests Wild Blueberries Help Burn Fat. Results showed participants burned notably more fat after consuming wild blueberries. For example, fat oxidation rate rose by 19.7%, 43.2%, and 31.1% at 20, 30, and 40 min after cycling. by Wagamaga

I agree with the other poster. This isn’t an ideal study but you’re being disingenuous or didn’t really understand the study design.

The washout happened prior to either control diet or wild blueberry supplemented diet. There is an issue with the control as you pointed out. But it’s not nearly as egregious as you make it seem. The WB powder provides an additional 100 calories per day. That should have been easy to replicate those calories in the control diet and so I’m confused as to why they either didn’t, or didn’t mention it in the methods.

I would take this study to mean that eating colorful fruits is likely to help you burn more fat. With more experimentation needed.

Finally. It’s very common for companies to donate drugs/supplements/specific foods to researchers for their studies. When I’m designing a study to test a specific drug I will contact the manufacturer to see if they are interested in donating drug for the study. And they often say yes. I acknowledge them appropriately but there is nothing nefarious about it.

and_dont_blink t1_je1e1o7 wrote on March 28, 2023 at 6:35 PM

>I agree with the other poster.

That's nice, Scientific_Methods. I'll note the other poster showed in their comment they hadn't actually read the study thoroughly.

>This isn’t an ideal study but you’re being disingenuous or didn’t really understand the study design.

I very much did.

>The washout happened prior to either control diet or wild blueberry supplemented diet.

That isn't really relevant given all the diet changes, and how loose the study is in general. Plenty of fields have similar issues with the expense and hassle required to do things to the point where you have a strong result, but that doesn't mean a weak result really tells us much it more means someone needed to graduate and it's not very likely to be replicated.

>I would take this study to mean that eating colorful fruits is likely to help you burn more fat.

I wouldn't take this as relevance of much of anything honestly, but we can agree to disagree.

[deleted] t1_je2r6ea wrote on March 28, 2023 at 11:59 PM

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pooptwat1 t1_je86w0s wrote on March 30, 2023 at 2:47 AM

Can you elaborate why the washout is irrelevant and what is loose about the study besides it being free living? The dietary changes that were instructed weren't highly likely to cause increases in fat oxidation to such a degree, except fasting and potentially alcohol reduction.

pooptwat1 t1_je83gei wrote on March 30, 2023 at 2:20 AM

As far as i know, the additional 100 calories on their own shouldn't induce a metabolic effect like increasing fat oxidation by up to 40% and reducing carb oxidation. Adding 100 calories into the control would be nearly impossible to skew the metrics they were investigating.

Since you're a researcher, is the washout really irrelevant as the other guy says? None of the changes the participants would've made during the washout would have increased fat oxidation and they weren't restricting a lot except colorful foods basically. Since they were required to provide food journals they could be accounted for, and even if they did eat some anthocyanins without reporting, why would the fat oxidation rates increase that after the powder was given? Wouldn't the increase have been lower or non existent if they still consumed large anounts of anthocyanins during the washout?