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- All Subjects: Biology
- Creators: Ellison, Karin
- Creators: Sweazea, Karen
This feasibility study explored the use of an evolutionary mismatch narrative in nutritional education intervention aiming to reduce ultra-processed foods in the diets of veterans with type 2 diabetes and improve diabetic outcomes. Ultra-processed foods are foods that are primarily manufactured through industrial processes. These foods are high in calories but low in nutritional content. Diets high in these foods have been linked to increased health risks. One of the major health risks is type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is a chronic disease that is developed when cells become unable to properly utilize insulin. Over time this may lead to additional health conditions such as nerve damage, cardiovascular disease, and renal disease. Evolutionary mismatch narrative nutritional intervention offers a different approach to nutritional education to help reduce ultra-processed foods in diets. This study was a randomized controlled feasibility study at the Phoenix VA. Eleven participants were enrolled and randomly selected to be given either an evolutionary mismatch narrative education intervention or general nutritional education about ultra-processed foods. 24-hour diet recalls and blood chemistry were collected and analyzed. Blood chemistry provided diabetes related measurements which included glucose, HbA1c, insulin, HOMA-IR, and C-reactive protein. Statistically significant findings in this study included percentage of ultra-processed foods decreasing for both control and experimental groups from week 0 to week 4 (p=0.014), and C-reactive protein levels between the control and experimental groups (p=0.042). However, baseline C-reactive protein concentrations were lower in the experimental group such that normalizing for group differences at baseline revealed no significant difference in C-reactive protein change between interventions (p = 1.000). There were no other statistically significant values regarding diabetes related measurements. The results from this study suggest that nutritional education in general may help decrease ultra-processed food consumption.
This project utilized computational tools to analyze large data sets and interpreted the results from historical and philosophical perspectives. Tools deployed were derived from scientometrics, corpus linguistics, text-based analysis, network analysis, and GIS analysis to analyze more than 9000 articles (metadata and text) on systems biology. The application of these tools to a HPS project represents a novel approach.
The dissertation shows that systems biology has transitioned from a more mathematical, computational, and engineering-oriented discipline focusing on modeling to a more biology-oriented discipline that uses modeling as a means to address real biological problems. Also, the results show that bioengineering and medical research has increased within systems biology. This is reflected in the increase of the centrality of biology-related concepts such as cancer, over time. The dissertation also compares the development of systems biology in China with some other parts of the world, and reveals regional differences, such as a unique trajectory of systems biology in China related to a focus on traditional Chinese medicine.
This dissertation adds to the historiography of modern biology where few studies have focused on systems biology compared with the history of molecular biology and evolutionary biology.
Urbanization is characterized by profound environmental changes, and urban animals must adjust to an environment vastly different from that of their non-urban conspecifics. Evidence suggests that birds adjust to urban areas by advancing the timing of seasonal breeding and gonad development, compared to their non-urban conspecifics. A leading hypothesis to account for this phenomenon is that food availability is elevated in urban areas, which improves the energetic status of urban birds and enables them to initiate gonad development earlier than their non-urban conspecifics. However, this hypothesis remains largely untested.
My dissertation dovetailed comparative studies and experimental approaches conducted in field and captive settings to examine the physiological mechanisms by which food availability modulates gonad growth and to investigate whether elevated food availability in urban areas advances the phenology of gonad growth in urban birds. My captive study demonstrated that energetic status modulates reproductive hormone secretion, but not gonad growth. By contrast, free-ranging urban and non-urban birds did not differ in energetic status or plasma levels of reproductive hormones either in years in which urban birds had advanced phenology of gonad growth or in a year that had no habitat-related disparity in seasonal gonad growth. Therefore, my dissertation provides no support for the hypothesis that urban birds begin seasonal gonad growth because they are in better energetic status and increase the secretion of reproductive hormones earlier than non-urban birds. My studies do suggest, however, that the phenology of key food items and the endocrine responsiveness of the reproductive system may contribute to habitat-related disparities in the phenology of gonad growth.