How do nutrition scientists apply the results of lab studies with animals to humans?
The biology seems so different. Whelan: You’re right—mice aren’t humans, and cells grown in culture aren’t either. Finding ways to translate lab results to humans can be very challenging. Consider the use of antioxidants, for example. Suppose that I grow colon cancer cells in a cell culture dish and then add resveratrol, one of the antioxidants found in the skins of grapes and in red wine. Red wine is supposed to impart some health benefit, at least in moderation, and one of the reasons is attributed to resveratrol. When you add resveratrol to cultured cells, the cancer cells basically commit suicide. You might conclude from this result, as many people have, that resveratrol is a fine anticancer agent. Most of the research done with resveratrol is in cell culture. This kind of experiment doesn’t take into account the importance of the dose, however, nor the change resveratrol undergoes after you eat it. Resveratrol doesn’t circulate in your body as resveratrol. Instead it circulates as
Related Questions
- What are the risks to humans and other animals while awaiting test results, and what precautions should be taken?
- Because of the new energy frequencies on Earth, do animals absorb nutrition more effectively, as humans do now?
- Wasn it through lab animals that scientists discovered diabetes and developed insulin?
