Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,
I am planning a science experiment to test the effect of spices on glucose to see how it affects diabetic people. I am planning on using 4 mg glucose tablets and combining them with different spices.

Here are the steps:
1. take one tablet and dissolve it in water in a cup
2. test the amount of glucose concentration and use the strips to test
3. take a new cup and dissolve another tablet in the same amount of water as step 1
4. make 5 cups like step 3
5. in each of those 5 cups mix a different spice in it
6. in each cup test the amount of glucose concentration using the strips again

So would this method of mixing the spices with the dissolved glucose work?
Thank you.

I forgot to say that I will also be adding very little insulin to every cup with the glucose, because the spices boosts insulin sensitivity. I am adding only very little because people with diabetes don't have much insulin produced. If the strips show that the glucose levels went down, that means we know the spices boosted the insulin.

Insulin doesn't affect glucose by itself - it affects how your body uses it. In a plastic cup you aren't going to see a difference in the reading on a test strip with the addition of spices or insulin. I'm sure there are better sites, but http://www.livestrong.com/article/27924 ... ose-blood/ is one that explains how it works.

To test your hypothesis yo may need to think of a way of involving diabetic humans. That's going to require some careful thought and coordination with some medical professionals. It's a very cool question and I hope you figure out a way of testing it.

Howard