Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Amount of solute that must be excreted by the kidney.  

Reshaping or degrading and rebuilding a body structure. The reshaping or reconstruction of a part of the body, especially to repair a part that has been injured (e.g., the walls of the heart after myocardial infarction or the airways in patients with asthma). The continuous interplay between bone generation and deterioration, culminating in the promotion…

A statistical method for calculating the relationship between an independent variable such as age with a dependent variable such as metabolic activity.  

Rare genetic disease characterized by defective oxidation of fatty acids. Symptoms include defective night vision, tremors, and other neurologic symptoms caused by an accumulation of phytanic acid, a metabolite of chlorophyll. An uncommon genetic condition impacting the body’s lipid metabolism, responsible for fat processing. Refsum’s disease results in elevated quantities of phytanic acid, a type…

A method for estimating food intake. It is used to obtain detailed information on food intake during a limited number of days, usually 1-7. During that period, the subjects write down everything they eat and estimate the quantities. A problem with this method is that people tend to forget to write things down or change…

A type of information bias that is of importance in case-control studies. It means that cases differ from controls in the recollection of exposure. Distortion introduced into a research investigation that relies on the memory of subjects, specifically, their recollections of elements that might have contributed to the eventual development of a disease or condition.…

The difference in incidence rate between exposed and unexposed populations, expressed in absolute terms. It is calculated by subtracting the incidence rate in the unexposed group (10) from the incidence rate in the exposed group (II). 10 can be interpreted as the baseline incidence rate, and only the incidence rate exceeding this figure is due…

A food processing technique affecting the oxidation of dietary fats and oils. Rapid freezing of raw plant material may be accompanied by lipoxygenase-mediated oxidation, depending on the extent of tissue damage and on the storage temperature and time.  

A seed oil plant. A subspecies of rapeseed is the canola seed, which has no erucic acid in its oil. The seed of Brassica campestris and other Brassica species, whose oil is used in the manufacture of lubricants and canola oil. The oil made from the seeds of the variety high in erucic acid is…