Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I have type 1 diabetes along with my dad and sister. I want to do my science experiment on Diabetes. I was thinking of doing something with how diets and exercise will affect blood sugars, but its been done so many times. I've decided to turn to you for help. Any ideas?

If you are particularly interested in how diet and exercise affect blood sugar, then I don't think you should immediately dismiss it because some of it has been tested before. Take some time to see what other people have done, and then see if you can't find a way to put your own spin on things.

Another thing that might be interesting to test is the variability of different strips/glucose meters. I understand there can be significant variability between brands and strips.

The other thought I had is that you might be interested in doing a project on the connection between genetics and Type 1 Diabetes. Since three people in your family have it, this might be of particular interest to you. You could do some background research on the known genetic factors that lead to Type 1 Diabetes (MHC genes are one that I know of, but there may be others), and come up with a project about that.

Finally, I did a search here in the Science Fair Project Ideas for Diabetes, and there are several projects that might listed. Maybe one of these will give you an idea that you are interested in. https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... s=diabetes

Hope this helps, and please continue to post in this thread for more help. I'm sure some other experts will have other ideas as well.

JMP

Hi,

Great topic, especially since you have such a strong personal interest! One idea just off the top of my head could be to test natural "cures" (which also ties in to diet) for diabetes, i.e. how various medicinal plants/"green" drugs/extracts affect insulin production. Even if you don't look at insulin directly, you could find some enzyme, biological compound, etc. that is involved in diabetes and test natural ways to improve its function. This would be a very interesting and novel research project for you, in my opinion! Hopefully this helps spark your research ideas.


[Administrator note: type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune disease for which there is currently no cure. The above reply addresses one type of diabetes only but would not be applicable to type 1 diabetes.]

i am interested in during a science fair project on does food types of foods increases or decreases the blood pressure and heart rate with people who has diabetes . i would to know is their a way in doing this project .

Hi Kadestiny,

This science fair project sounds really interesting! One of the first steps in conducting a project that involves human subjects is to find people who are willing to participate in your research. For your specific project, it might be difficult to find a group of people to participate, but a good start would be to try to find diabetes patients through family members or friends. Additionally, if your school participates in an official science fair, you may need to get human consent forms for each person involved in this project. Your teacher should be able to point you in the right direction in terms of these rules and regulations.

Heart rate can be evaluated pretty easily without any equipment. All you need to do is find the person's pulse (the neck and wrist are both easy places to find a pulse) and count the number of beats in 1 minute. You could also count the number of beats in 15 or 30 seconds, then multiply that number by 4 or 2, respectively.

On the other hand, you'll need a blood pressure cuff to measure blood pressure. These can often be found at drugstores or online, and only cost about $10-15.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by food types, but I would make sure that you stick to just a few different types of foods, the food is consistent each time you test (so you're giving each person the same ingredients and amount of food) and test as many subjects as possible with each type of food. Good luck, and let us know if you have more questions!

Hope this helped,
Allison

skier23 wrote:I have type 1 diabetes along with my dad and sister. I want to do my science experiment on Diabetes. I was thinking of doing something with how diets and exercise will affect blood sugars, but its been done so many times. I've decided to turn to you for help. Any ideas?

This would be an great project for you since you have personal interests in this topic. The first thing to think about is what types of experiments you will be able to do. When dealing with health related experiments, it is important to understand necessary safety precautions to make sure that you can obtain proper consent and approval to work with human test subjects.

Here's a great guide found on the science buddies website, from one of the diabetes related experiments that deals with exercise.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure

Hope this helps you to narrow down your experiment ideas. Let us know if you need more help with a specific experiment that you come up with!

All the best,
Elaine