Authors rely on a range of devices and techniques to attract and maintain the interest of readers, and to convince them of the merits of the author’s point of view. However, when writing a scientific article, authors must use these ‘persuasive communication devices’ carefully. In particular, they must be explicit about the limitations of their work, avoid obfuscation, and resist the temptation to oversell their results. Here we discuss a list of persuasive communication devices and we encourage authors, as well as reviewers and editors, to think carefully about their use.
This dataset provides the data collected for a trial investigating the role of hydration status on glycaemic regulation and appetite control in healthy adults (n = 16; n = 8 male). The trial was a randomised crossover trial, with each trial arm lasting 5 days. The first 3 days were lifestyle monitoring, day 4 was a dehydration/rehydration day (including lifestyle monitoring), and day 5 was the full trial day. The trial arms were hypohydrated (HYPO), or rehydrated (RE).
The data for the project relating to glycaemia has been previously published (https://doi.org/10.15125/BATH-00547) and may be useful for further analysis of this dataset, which relates to the appetite part of the study. Key hydration biomarkers have been duplicated in this dataset for convenience.
Abstract Background: The role of nutrient timing in energy intake amongst people with dysglycaemia is understudied but could be a simple method to help regulate appetite. This study analysed within-person associations of sugar intake at breakfast and subsequent energy intake. Methods: We used 4-day diet diary data from 147 participants (47 % men) encompassing 547 days of diet recording in the Sedentary Time and Metabolic Health in People with Type 2 diabetes project (STAMP-2). Linear two-level models were used to investigate within- (day-level) and between-person (participant-level) variation in total and post-breakfast energy intake according to skipping breakfast, low- (> 0-14.2 g) or high- (> 14.2 g) sugar intake at breakfast, adjusting for potential confounding or mediation. Results: Post-breakfast energy intakes were observed to be lower after eating low- and high-sugar breakfasts (compared to skipping), but higher total energy intake was associated with eating a high-sugar breakfast. Compared to breakfast skipping, both low- and high-sugar breakfasts were strongly associated with lower post-breakfast energy intake (-178, 95 % confidence interval [CI] -261, -94 kcal/d; ‑151, 95 % CI -235, -67 kcal/d, respectively). However, compared to skipping breakfast, low-sugar breakfasts were weakly associated with higher total daily energy intake (64, 95 % CI -18, 146 kcal/d), whereas high-sugar breakfasts had a strong association (135, 95 % CI 52, 217 kcal/d). Post-breakfast energy intakes were similar between low- and high-sugar breakfast days (27, 95 % CI -53, 106 kcal/d), whilst total daily energy intake tended to be higher with high- (compared to low-) sugar breakfasts (70, -8, 149 kcal/d). We also observed evidence of energy compensation whereby 86 % of the extra energy consumed in a low-sugar breakfast was compensated for by reductions in post-breakfast energy intakes, compared to only 53 % after a high-sugar breakfast. Conclusion: Overall, high-, but not low-, sugar breakfasts were associated with higher total daily energy intake when compared to breakfast skipping, despite a similar reduction in post-breakfast energy intake. We found evidence of poorer post-breakfast energy intake compensation with high-sugar breakfasts than low-sugar breakfasts. These findings suggest portion size may be important to consider in future breakfast research, with sugar being a proxy of portion size.