Analysis Final PDF

Review of an Investigative Journal Article You Are What You Eat: Part 2

The effect of human diet on health has been a topic of high interest over the past couple of years. In fact, on February 11th, 2019, Laure Schnabel, MD, Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot, PhD, Benjamin Allès, PhD, et al, recently published a journal article specifically concerning the link between eating habits and death. The article, “Association Between Ultraprocessed Food Consumption and Risk of Mortality Among Middle-aged Adults in France,” was published in the JAMA Internal Medicine Journal. Written in IMRAD format, the journal article is written with formality and scientific objectivity to concisely summarize the experiment and its observations.

The research article has a formal introduction, consistent with the outline of introductions found in the textbook. The introduction includes the purpose of the experiment at the very end of the introduction, which was to assess the association between ultra-processed foods and mortality risk, in a clear and pointed sentence. The majority of the introduction was written in a passive voice, with the exception of the aim of the experiment, which was in an active voice (by starting with “our”). The introduction was written in the present tense. The format of the introduction is that it goes from the general topic of what an ultraprocessed food is to the specifics of their own experiment, such has its effect on cardiovascular disease (CVD), cancer, as well as diabetes. It also contains a literature review, in which the author refers back to different journals that have analyzed similar or related topics to explain the reasoning behind their research. It also has a helpful additional box on the side that specifically lays out the research question.

The introduction is systematically followed by the methods section. The methods section went through every step that was done during the study, including the population and data collection, case ascertainment, and the statistical analysis. All of these aspects were outlined in the textbook to be important factors of the methods section, such as the subjects and their selection, the laboratory procedures of data collection, and the analysis of the data. The wording of this section was mainly in passive voice, almost never switching over to the active voice, in order to prevent any sort of bias in the procedure. It was all written in the past tense. The wording of the methods section was carefully chosen in order for the experiment to be reproducible by another person. On top of this, there was also a flow chart included to show which subjects were retained and which subjects were let go for their study to further explain the procedure.

The results of the journal article went into depth with the data that was collected during the study. The findings were clearly delineated in the results in word format, all in passive voice and in past tense, and were composed of many calculations, such as means of various values, proportions, p-values, and many other associations. In order to further organize the data, there were also four tables filled with data to make processing the findings more visually simple. One part that the results was missing were figures and graphs, rather than simple data tables, which is a difference with what the textbook stated the results would contain. The data shown in the results stayed more in line with the raw data than being very interpreted.

Finally, the discussion was written with an active voice in the past tense. The switch to active voice was most likely due to the author findings to their own experiment. The discussion went over various hypothesis and reasons why their data was the way it was by referring to previous literature on similar topics for support. The discussion also considered the strengths and limitations in order to help explain the implications of the data. It surmised with a final conclusion, in which the results were stated to be consistent with the hypothesis, as well as a call for future studies, as the textbook delineated it would as well.

Reference

Schnabel L, Kesse-Guyot E, Alles B, Touvier M, Srour B, Hercberg S, Buscail C, Julia C. Association Between Ultraprocessed Food Consumption and Risk of Mortality Among Middle-aged Adults in France. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2019 Feb 11 [accessed 2019 Feb 20]. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/articleabstract/2723626. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.7289