Knowing nutrition

[Music plays and the Maths inside, UTS, AAMT and CSIRO logos and text appears: Investigating the maths inside, Knowing Nutrition]

 

[Image changes to show Jane Bowen talking to the camera and the camera zooms in on Jane’s face as she talks]

 

Jane Bowen: So, a Dietitian is a person who has the right university qualifications in the evidence surrounding food and nutrition and they apply that to counselling groups and individuals about healthy eating both, simply for health, but also to manage certain medical conditions.

 

[Image changes to show Jane smiling at the camera and text appears: Jane Bowen, Research Dietitian, CSIRO]

 

Hi, I’m Jane Bowen and I’m a Research Dietitian at CSIRO.

 

[Music plays and a background image of different sorts of grain and written formulas appear behind text: #MATHEMATICS]

 

[Image changes to show a female in conversation and then the image changes to show a hand operating the control panel on a machine and then taking sample pots out of the machine]

 

Working out what to research and what to study can be difficult because research funding is pretty tight.

 

[Image changes to show Jane talking to the camera and then the image changes to show a hand operating a touch screen and then the image changes to show data on a computer screen]

 

So, what we do is look at where the biggest areas of needs are in Australia and work out what we can do to address that and solve that problem.

 

[Images move through of a touch screen being operated, a person having their blood pressure taken and Jane talking to the camera]

 

We know that what people eat has a huge bearing on their health and we’re beginning to work out that that is, you know, way more complex than we ever realised because it affects our health and also the bugs in our gut.

 

[Image changes to show a female walking through a fresh fruit and veg market and selecting some apples]

 

The other thing that’s changing in terms of we are what we eat, is that the information is really being brought to the people through accessing info through the web, famous Doctor Google.

 

[Image shows the shop owner serving the female and the female laughing and then the image changes to show the female washing fruit and vegetables under a tap]

 

So, people are more in control of deciding about their health and what they eat than ever before.

 

[Images move through of Jane talking to the camera and various employees working in a laboratory]

 

We work in a really big team at CSIRO conducting our human clinical trials and bringing together people with different research skills and different scientific skills and they come from behavioural science, nutritional and dietetics science, and then all the laboratory and analytical science, but we also have people with expertise in maths and statistics as well, and increasingly we’ve got people involved in all the e-health and digital side of science.

 

[Image shows a laboratory worker picking up a tray of samples and then the image changes to show Jane and a male looking at a computer]

 

We use maths in pretty much every stage along the pathway for doing a scientific study.

 

[Image changes to show Jane talking to the camera and then the camera zooms in on Jane’s face as she talks]

 

So, we use it to calculate how many people need to be involved in a study, so we can get the right answer, and then randomising people to different groups and then of course designing the type of interventions, so calculating people’s energy requirements. And then of course all the statistical analysis at the end of the study to manage all the data and interpret that.

 

[Image changes to show Megan Rebuli walking into an office and sitting down at a desk and working on a computer and then the image shows Megan talking to the camera and text appears: Megan Rebuli, Research Dietitian, CSIRO]

 

Megan Rebuli: In a clinical trial, the time that we spend with volunteers is usually round about half an hour for their first visit and for their subsequent visits can be anything from 15 minutes to half an hour, sometimes even faster.

 

[Image changes to show a rear view of Megan looking at a pie diagram on a computer screen]

 

It just depends on what we need in the trial.

 

[Images move through of Megan in the clinic talking, a male entering a clinic and speaking to the receptionist, Megan talking to the camera, and then Megan talking and a male participant listening]

 

So, down here in the clinic, when participants come in for a trial, the information that we would be looking at and figuring out how they will fit into the trial are things like, their height and their weight, their body mass index, and their activity levels, and from that we can calculate what their energy requirements are. So, we can work out how much food or meal replacements to provide them with.

 

[Image changes to show a male participant standing on some scales]

 

I do use maths a lot in my daily job.

 

[Images move through of Megan smiling and then putting a blood pressure arm band on a participant, Megan sitting at a desk looking at a computer, different graphs on the screen and Megan talking]

 

Some examples of what I would have learned through primary school or secondary school are basics, like addition and subtraction, through to things like algebra when we’re calculating energy requirements for a person or calculating what their dietary intake of food needs to be, through to more advanced formulas that we might use to work out someone’s requirements for protein or carbohydrates.

 

[Image changes to show a rear view of Cathryn Pape walking through a laboratory and then looking at a computer with a male]

 

Cathryn Pape: The majority of the samples that we get up here are blood samples that have been taken from the volunteers by the nurses in the clinic.

 

[Images move through of Cathryn Pape standing in a lab talking to the camera, her face as she talks and then working on a computer while another female looks on and text appears: Cathryn Pape, Research Technician, CSIRO]

 

So, the blood goes into a machine called a centrifuge which spins it and separates it into two layers which we then take off one of those layers and store until the end of the study. Then we analyse it.

 

[Image shows the other female smiling and talking and pointing to data on the computer screen]

 

So, when we analyse samples using a plate-based assay, we have standards which are liquids that have a known concentration.

 

[Image changes to show Cathryn and the female in conversation and then the image changes to show a close-up view of Cathryn talking]

 

This is set up on a graph which gives us an equation that we must then use to work out the concentration of say insulin in the sample we’re investigating.

 

[Image changes to show Cathryn and the other female laughing and the image changes to show the computer screen they are looking at]

 

We use maths every day in the lab. It’s very important to us.

 

[Image changes to show Cathryn and her colleagues working in the lab]

 

Without maths we wouldn’t be able to work out the concentrations of various anolytes in our samples.

 

[Image changes to show Cathryn working on a machine in the lab and then the camera zooms in on the machine in operation]

 

Maths has proved very helpful in my role in terms of analysing our data.

 

[Images move through of Cathryn watching the machine in operation, Cathryn’s face as she watches, many samples in a tray in the machine and data on the computer screen]

 

Often, we run samples in duplicate to make sure that we’re getting the correct response or correct answer and I need to be able to use maths to look at the two results that I get and make sure that they are close together. That shows that the answer is accurate.

 

[Image changes to show Megan talking to the camera and then the image changes to show a rear view of a female walking into an office]

 

Megan Rebuli: So, we have a statistician working here and she’ll often present us with tables and graphs.

 

[Image changes to show hands typing on a keyboard and then the camera zooms out to show Megan working on the computer and text appears: Graphs, Scatter plots, Box plots]

 

So, I definitely need to know how to interpret a range of graphs like scatter plots, or box plots.

 

[Images move through of data on the computer screen and then the image changes to show Megan talking to the camera and text appears across the front of the images: Fractions, Percentages, Statistics, Regression, T-Test]

 

Important to be able to interpret tables as well and understanding fractions and percentages through to some of the more advanced statistics that we do like regressions or t-tests as well. So, really understanding what she’s trying to communicate to us and how she would have come to that answer.

 

[Image changes to show a rear view of Mary walking to her desk and then working on a computer and the camera zooms in on Mary at work]

 

Mary Barnes: When a trial participant comes into the clinic, they’ll get various measurements made on them.

 

[Image changes to show Mary talking to the camera and text appears: Mary Barnes, Statistician, CSIRO]

 

Some of them being like physical things, like height, weight, blood pressure, etc., as well they’ll get some bloods taken.

 

[Image changes to show data on a computer screen and then the camera zooms out to show Mary pointing to the data on the screen]

 

When that data eventually comes to me I will then look at that data.

 

[Image changes to show a close-up of Mary talking to the camera and then the camera zooms out to show Mary talking]

 

I might do some histograms say of blood pressure of the two treatment groups, so the placebo, the people who are not getting any active treatment and the treatment group and compare those because you hope that you will get a nice balanced trial.

 

[Image changes to show data scrolling through on the computer]

 

So that there’s, you know the people with the high blood pressure are not all in one group and the lower blood pressure in another.

 

[Image changes to show a close-up of Mary talking to the camera and then the image changes to show different graphs on the computer screen]

 

After all the data is collected we would then look at the data and we’d try and analyse that data to… usually the main outcome is, whether there is statistically significant differences between the treatment and the placebo group.

 

[Image changes to show a close-up of Mary talking and then the camera zooms out to show Mary talking to the camera]

 

What is surprising in your adult life how much you use mathematical skills.

 

[Image changes to show Mary typing on a keyboard]

 

I mean, in my particular profession, obviously maths is involved in almost all my day.

 

[Images move through of data moving through on the computer screen, a close-up of Mary talking and then the camera zooms out to show Mary talking to the camera]

 

The mathematical skills that I need to programme, to actually analyse my data, even the mathematical way of thinking so that when I’m designing these trials I can be thinking about well what sort of things might impact the results of this trial, what would help us ensure that this trial will be able to be not argued against later.

 

[Image changes to show Jane standing in an office and talking to the camera and then the camera zooms in on Jane’s face as she talks and then out to show Jane in the office talking to the camera]

 

Jane Bowen: Here now, I can absolutely see that the maths that I did at school and the way I started thinking about maths and answering questions is used absolutely every day in my work here at CSIRO.

 

[Music plays and the Maths Inside logo and text appears: Investigating the maths inside, Maths Inside is a project led by University of Technology Sydney, and funded by the Commonwealth Department of Education and Training under the Australian Maths and Sciences Partnership Program, The aim of Maths Inside is to increase engagement of secondary school students in mathematics, by using rich tasks that show the ways it is used in real world applications, To find out more about this project and other AMSPP resources, please go to http://dimensions.aamt.edu.au, Maths Inside 2016 except where otherwise indicated, the Maths Inside materials may be used, reproduced, communicated and adapted free of charge for non-commercial educational purposes provided all acknowledgements associated with the material are retained, Maths Inside is a UTS project in collaboration with CSIRO and AAMT]