Nutritional Study - Volunteers wanted!

mloc

I've already posted about this in the Fitness forum but the mods were kind enough to let me have a look here too.

I'm recruiting for a study at the moment and having trouble finding people who are young ( < 40), relatively healthy but yet overweight (BMI > 30). I'm preferably looking for guys but it's not that important.

Does anyone have any ideas which areas to look at? Finding younger people who fit the bill has proved to be a lot harder than older people.

By healthy, I mean not on any medication (except for the pill, exceptions could be made for some other stuff) and no current cardiovascular or related conditions (clinically relevant hypertension, T2DM etc.). Smoking is fine (well, in this case it is!).

And more about the study:

It's for a metabolic study that's ongoing between UCD and St. Vincent's hospital.

From the website (http://www.ucd.ie/jingo/researchprogrammes/)

Metabolic Challenge Study (MECHE)

University College Dublin will recruit 200 subjects aged 18-60 years into a study which involves a metabolic challenge with either a high fat meal or a high carbohydrate meal. In addition to nutrigenomics analysis, subjects will undergo body composition imaging, muscle function and fitness testing.

I need about 10-15 overweight people to use as a metabolically challenged group. We screen all the volunteers with a blood profile (cholesterol, fasting triglycerides etc) and all those results are provided to the volunteer. If they pass screening, there are also fitness and body composition assessments (which includes a DEXA bone density scan and a BodPod body fat composition analysis, which otherwise would be rather pricey to have done).

My own research is focussed around the response of certain immune cells within the blood to the nutritional challenge, and specifically, which genes are switched on and off. Additionally, for some volunteers who qualify (the current criteria is having a waist measurement of > 40 inches in guys, and > 36 inches in women) there is an entirely optional fat tissue biopsy, where we will look at the genes that are being switched on and off in the fat tissue of a volunteer. That's something I'm very interested in.

Dotcomdolly

Hi, I don't qualify but I'll re-post on a (womens) forum I use & direct people here.
Shame, I'd love to get the body composition done - will it be with the dexa?

mloc

Dotcomdolly wrote: »

Hi, I don't qualify but I'll re-post on a (womens) forum I use & direct people here.
Shame, I'd love to get the body composition done - will it be with the dexa?

Body comp is done using the BodPod and also DEXA.

Edit:

Thanks for passing on the info - it's much appreciated!

Dotcomdolly

mloc wrote: »

Thanks for passing on the info - it's much appreciated!

Hook us up with a free dexa so

El_Dangeroso

mloc wrote: »

Body comp is done using the BodPod and also DEXA.

Edit:

Thanks for passing on the info - it's much appreciated!

Aw, I'd love to get this done but I don't qualify either.:(

brianthebard

The link didn't work for me the first time, take the ): away mloc. It doesn't say when the test would be done, do you know? I'd be interested but would be even more interested in a few months when I have more cash, would make travelling easier. Also, a waist measurement is around your body at the belly button point, or where exactly?

Sapsorrow

I'm guessing you've tried recruiting on campus already?

Dotcomdolly

Sapsorrow wrote: »

I'm guessing you've tried recruiting on campus already?

"Hey, you look overweight, fancy doing a study?" Watch him pull de ladies:pac:

Sapsorrow

Dotcomdolly wrote: »

"Hey, you look overweight, fancy doing a study?" Watch him pull de ladies:pac:

He he ya true! In my old college dept we put up posters and sent round an email to all the students. We also called into nutrition lectures and pressured nutrition students into doing them on the basis that one day they would be in our shoes trying to do the same thing

mloc

Sapsorrow wrote: »

He he ya true! In my old college dept we put up posters and sent round an email to all the students. We also called into nutrition lectures and pressured nutrition students into doing them on the basis that one day they would be in our shoes trying to do the same thing

Yep, we've done that. Damn skinny nutrition students.

El_Dangeroso

mloc wrote: »

Yep, we've done that. Damn skinny nutrition students.

Hazard of the trade. :pac:

psycho-hope

hey mloc, i would be interested in being a volunteer if your still looking.

mloc

Absolutely. The email address to contact is

jingo@ucd.ie

Just mention boards.ie and that you'd like to participate in MECHE.

Genuinely appreciate all the replies.

rantyface

Offer a free lunch for it. I often do psychology and computer science things for free lunch if I see a poster for it. You could ask the science schools to email all their students. Ask the student union reps too.

mloc

Ah yes, there is actually a free lunch involved. Kinda have to feed people after asking them to fast first!