A case study we talked about in class that I found interesting was the study of the young Inuit child. A more broader aspect of the case study that I was interested in was the glucose challenge test. I’ve never taken one but I had heard of people taking it more recently than ever and my friend had recently taken one so I was able to tell her about the biochemistry behind it which was really fun! Therefore seeing how drastic the effects can be seen on a graph or in a data set peaked my interest.
Going more in depth with the inuit study though, it’s interesting to see how fast a child’s body can have a rapid increase in blood glucose but only several hours later have hypoglycemia. We also talked about how this defect is more prominent in Inuit populations therefore was also compelling to see. Lastly, it was interesting to see how there’s a ready, accessible, cheap remedy to this type of problem, which as feeding uncooked cornstarch (amylopectin) before bed, because in many genetic defects, in order to control or remedy it, it takes more money, effort, etc. Since cornstarch releases very slowly, it was possible for the child to sleep through the night and regulate its glycogen breakdown.