All variables, in short, were mathematically measured and assessed and the mice were controlled to the strictest degree so that no extraneous element would intrude and corrupt the experiment. Mice were as closely matched as possible in all details as too were the living conditions in which the mice were kept. Elimination of all possible subjectivity made this a reliable scientific study. A larger population of mice could have been used in order to assess whether study possesses replicability, but 11:10 may be sufficient.
Do you think that there may be any possible biases or other problems in this experiment? Explain.
A larger population of mice may be useful in order to test repeatability. The brand of coffee too may be a factor, as well as intensity of coffee (it would be interesting, for instance, to see whether a larger dose has the same effect). The way the coffee was produced (whether pure blend for instance) may also be a factor, and tehn too may be the fact that mice are simply unused to drinking coffee and this physiological factor alone may have had an impact.
Although many may conclude that coffee has a positive impact on lowering blood sugar, it seems to me that no conclusions can be applied from mice to humans since each have a different makeup aside from the fact that humans are far more differentiated than mice (and far more used to drinking coffee). Coffee is a generic aspect -- one need to discover which type, brand and so forth, as well as quantity would be the most effective in reducing blood level (if one were to accept value of experiment). Secondly, different people become affected by coffee in different ways. Ultimately, therefore, the experiment is interesting, but its applications are still in question.
Source
Yamauchi et al. (2010). Coffee and caffeine ameliorate hyperglycemia, fatty liver, and inflammatory adipocytokine expression in spontaneously diabetic KK-Ay mice. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 58 (9), 5597-5603.
