The Metformin Treatment in Prediabetes and Daylong Plasma Analysis

. An effective strategy would be to read the questions, then read the paper so you are targeting the important content

• Write your answers in complete sentences.
• Your answers should be one to five sentences long, depending on the question.
• Do not do a lot of writing, just demonstrate that you read and understood the paper and express your opinion is about some of the issues raised.
• Points will be awarded based on the correctness and completeness of answers, or whether your opinion makes sense and you explained it clearly
• 1)Choose ONE of these three questions and thoroughly answer it:
• A) What is your understanding of “personalized medicine”? Do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea, or somewhere in between and why? [You can google the definition if you don’t know but give me your own opinion about if it’s good or bad.]
• B) In a study using human subjects, scientists in the US are required to get “informed consent” from the participants. What does this mean and why is it important? [You can google the definition if you don’t know but give me your own opinion about why it is important.]
• C) In the second paragraph of the discussion they talk about the drug metformin that can help people manage prediabetes. Assuming that it works, what are the pros and cons of taking a drug to treat the condition versus making lifestyle changes like diet and exercise?
• 2)What type of people are disproportionately represented among the study subjects? [Look in the Results section, Participant Characteristics]. How might this study group composition impact how these results should be appled by a nutritionist or doctor in practice?
• 3)Figure 2 shows the main result of the study. In your own words, describe the result shown in each graph in one sentence per graph. Remember that the variable was measured at the beginning and end of 12 weeks and the result is the change over that time (or difference, so a negative number is a decrease). Make sure to read the Figure Legend so you know what is different between panel a and panel b.
• 4)Prediabetes is defined by having a blood glucose over the high end of the “normal” range, which is 5.3 mmol/l for fasting glucose and 7.8 mmol/l for glucose tolerance. Look at the data in Table 3 and the last paragraph of the Results section for Glucose Homeostasis. Looking at the Fasting Glucose test, is there a group that started the study above the normal range and ended the study below the normal range? [ Select ] [“No“, “Yes, IFG“, “Yes, IGT“, “Yes, IFG/IGT“] Looking at the Glucose Tolerance test, is there a group that started the study above the normal range and ended the study below the normal range? [ Select ] [“Sort of, IGT almost made it“, “No“, “Yes, IFG“, “Yes, IFG/IGT“]
• 5)What other personal reflections do you have after reading this paper? For example, if you know someone who has Type I or Type II diabetes (or have it yourself) what do these results mean to you? If you love exercise (or hate exercise) what did you think about doing the exercise program yourself and the potential benefits? What other thoughts or questions did the article provoke? What follow-up study would you do if you were working with these authors?