Introduction
The “Scientific Method” characterizes science from other fields of studies. It encompasses methodologies of scientific inquiry that follow certain patterns to easily obtain and make experimentation easier. The scientific method is improved as science and technology progress but it has the following general parts that are universal: a. identifying the problem statement, b. formulation of hypotheses, c. observation from sampling, measurement and description of the data obtained, d. formulation of inductions, e., employing theories and finally, f. formation of conclusion (Oxford University Press). These steps are greatly relevant to obtain the desired data for an experiment and with the article entitled “New evidence that drinking coffee may reduce the risk of diabetes”, the scientific method is somewhat followed.
Discussion
Going through the article, it is evident that what drives the researchers to do the experiment is the emergence of a common disease called diabetes. The search for a better and alternative cure for such disease made the researches come up with caffeine, usually found in coffee as the material to be tested for. The caffeine is said to reduce the risk of people of having diabetes. There are hypotheses that can be made from the given article such as:
Alternative hypothesis: The caffeine-containing black coffee can reduce the blood sugar concentration of mice.
Null hypothesis: The caffeine-containing black coffee cannot reduce the blood sugar concentration of mice.
For the experiment, the researchers had two groups, one is the variable group which gave the mice black coffee as their source of fluid in their diets (coffee: water is 1:1) and a control group which gave the mice water as the source of fluid. However, the variable group and the control group did not have equal number of mice as their subjects with 11 and 10 respectively. It is also stated in the article that the food intake of the mice for the two groups were known and monitored in a span of five weeks. The blood sugar concentrations were also tested every week during the time frame(American Chemical Society, 2010). The variables included in the experimentare the blood sugar concentration (dependent variable) and the food intake, weight, growth of the mice (independent variables).
As for the results of the five-week monitoring of the blood sugar concentration of the two groups, the control group showed an increasing concentration while the variable group showed a great decline of almost 30% (American Chemical Society, 2010). These data gathered from the experiment for the two groups to compare their sugar concentration just proved that the alternative hypothesis is valid.
However, it is quite intriguing that the control group had their increase in blood sugar level given the fact that they were only administered with water. Some suspicions arise since if there are no manipulations of data, I think, the control group should have maintained their sugar levels. To eradicate these thoughts, I think it is better if the article presented what diet were the mice of the two groups were in. Transparency on the food intake should be presented as well as the ingredients or components of the fluid intake for the two groups; it is very important to know what kind of water was administered to the control group and what kind of black coffee was given to the variable group. In addition, for credibility of the data, the sample size is expected to be same for both groups and increase in sample size would be better. One more intriguing element of the experiment and article is that the brand of coffee was not mentioned. It is important that transparency of materials used as well as methodology and specific name of the test used for blood sugar concentration is disclosed. One of the major limitations of the study is that it is only tested for mice and the specific species of mice is also not mentioned.
Conclusion
Researches like this, even if it has flaws, are relevant to the field of science to open the curiosity of other scientist whether this is factual or not. Hence, innovations and improvement in testing the effect of coffee as a cure for diabetes can be made.
References:
American Chemical Society. (2010, June 10). New evidence that drinking coffee may reduce the risk of diabetes. ScienceDaily. Retrieved from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100609111316.htm
Oxford University Press.The Scientific Method. Retrieved from https://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/tropej/online/ce_ch1.pdf
