Wanted: overweight teens for health and nutrition study

RESEARCHERS IN Dublin are looking to recruit overweight teenagers to take part in a study on teen health and nutrition. The study, which hopes to enrol about 100 teenagers, involves participants taking a nutritional supplement and following a healthy eating plan.

Currently, almost one in five teenagers in Ireland is either overweight or obese, said researcher Dr Fiona Lithander, a nutritionist and lecturer in human nutrition at Trinity College Dublin.

“Many teenagers make poor food choices, including eating a diet rich in high-fat foods such as cakes and biscuits and not eating enough foods such as fruit, vegetables and fish,” she said.

“As a result, some teenagers don’t get healthy nutrients from their diet which are known to be important for health. These poor food choices, in addition to carrying extra weight, can cause the body to produce unhealthy substances called inflammatory hormones which travel around in the blood and can increase the teenagers’ risk of developing diabetes and heart disease.”

The study, which is free of charge, involves participating teenagers taking one carton of fruit juice and four small tablets that contain the nutrients every day for eight weeks.

“This supplement contains healthy nutrients that are usually found in foods such as fruit, vegetables and fish – nutrients which are generally lacking in an Irish teenager’s diet,” said Dr Lithander.

Participants will also be asked to follow a healthy eating plan, to visit the study’s dietitian and to give blood samples.

The study, which is funded by the National Children’s Research Centre, Crumlin hospital, is being run by Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin.

“We are looking for teenagers aged from 13 years up to their 19th birthday who are overweight,” said Dr Lithander. “The overall aim of the study is to gain a greater understanding of the health of Irish teenagers. The study also aims to investigate if this nutritional supplement can decrease the number of unhealthy inflammatory hormones and, as a result, improve teenage health.”

For more information contact Aoibheann McMorrow at teen.nutrition@tcd.ie or 086 7213854