Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hey, so I’m In grade 11, and I’m planning to do a project on how diet of an individual can trigger migraines. I’ve suffered from severe migraines and it’s always due to the fact that I skip meals or eat random unhealthy food. So I know it has to be an experiment based project but I don’t know how to move forward. Like how should I conduct my experiments and stuff. I read about a kid doing an experiment on how atmospheric pressure changes can cause migraines and how he made 5 people record when they get their migraines and stuff he concluded that 80% of the time, his participants had migraines on the same day. I want to do something like this but according to my safety rule I can’t technixally ask individuals to stop eating or control their diets. So I want come up with a diet plan and stuff along that line but I have no idea on how to conduct an experiment. Please help.
Depika

Hello and welcome to science buddies!

You have selected a very important question and you are right in saying that, for safety reasons, you won't be able to manipulate or control the diet of your volunteer subjects. Have you thought about asking your subjects to simply record their diet and record when they get a migraine? This design would be considered a survey, rather than an experiment. If this sounds like an approach you might be interested in, you will need to do some research to consider how you would ask your subjects to record their food intake as well as how you want them to record the information about the timing, duration, and severity of migraines.

You will also need to determine how many subjects to include in your survey, and how many days you want them to record their diet. You can look online for scientific reports on migraines and, also, scientific reports for studies based on having the subjects record their diet.

Here's a link to a section on "increasing the ability of an experiment to measure an effect" in the science buddies advanced project guide:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... l-to-noise

Another thing to consider if whether your intended science fair will require you to get approval from the Scientific Review Committee since your study will involve human subjects.

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... mittee-src

I realize that I've given a long and detailed list of things to consider. You don't have to solve all of these issues simultaneously ... start the literature research to find good ways to have the subjects record their diets, then look for good ways to have them record their migraines. Please let us know your next questions .... the experts here can help you step by step. Good luck!