Living in a university town with some very large medical facilities, it's not unusual to be asked to be a research subject. I'm more than happy to comply, as long as it doesn't involve too much bodily invasions and the words "bowels" or "intestinal capacity" don't come up. Both my kids have been subjects for the Department of Psycology. (Anyone willing to take a crack at figuring them out can be my guest.)
Recently, I volunteered to be in a project in which they were studying the effects of dark chocolate on blood pressure, and whether or not slightly elevated blood pressure could be controlled by diet rather than medication. The subjects had to eat dark chocolate 3 times a day for 12 weeks, have 8 weeks off and then repeat the experiment with white chocolate for 8 weeks. At the end, the subject would get $400.00. Okay, let me get this straight, I get to eat chocolate which has been provided to me, for 4 months, and then I get $400 for the priviledge? Sign me up!!
Not surprisingly, there were a couple of restrictions: apart from the expected blood-letting, monitoring and guarantees that I wouldn't mess up their study, I also had to agree to drink no more than 3 cups of coffee a day (no problem, I don't have more than that anyway, as I become a shakey, reeling, emotional time-bomb, with ADD.) I had to agree to abstain from tea entirely (this one's a little tougher. I don't drink tea on a regular basis, but when I do, I NEED it. I'm Irish; tea is my Valium.) And, the biggest caveat of them all: I had to agree to eat no other chocolate other than the stuff I'd be given. Now, I'm not a big chocoholic or anything, and I ususally give up chocolate for Lent every year, but that's only 40 days, and there's a big old Lindor bunny waiting to be massacred at the end of it all. This one gave me pause.....I'd have to get through Halloween, Christmas and Easter, entirely chocolate-free. Just think of it: no little Mars bars to get me through the dim, wet days of November. No Terry's Chocolate Orange to off-set the stressful mall excursions in December. Worst of all, no Lindor bunny. This would be testing my resolve mightily, but for four hundred bucks, I'd give up eating everything. (Think of the weight loss!!)
So, off I go to the clinic to get checked out. I fill out about a hundred forms, mostly absolving the clinic of all responsibility if I keel over an die, and read the specs of the study, etc. They bring me into a room and ask me a ton of questions, and even before she takes my blood pressure, the nurse smiles and says "I can tell you now, you're not going to qualify: you're too healthy." Sure enough, my blood pressure, the 3 times she takes it, is 120/80. As I'm not overweight (Thank you, anonymous nurse from the clinic!), have no past history with blood pressure problems, don't smoke and have neither parent dead from a stroke, I unfortunately do not qualify for the study.
So, although I won't get the $400, I guess the upside is that I'm rudely healthy. And I can eat chocolate. I guess those are both worth more than $400.00.
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