Clinical science students talk research
Heather Robinson, head of campus
Clinical science undergraduates have presented the results of their final year health research
projects at Charles Sturt University (CSU).
Using data from the NSW arm of the international BOLD (Burden of Obstructive Lung Disease) study,
Ghazaleh Mobin, Seraj Shamsirad and Andy Tran examined the smoking habits, quitting methods
and general health of people aged over 40 years in rural NSW.
Increased age and living in rural regions have both been identified as risk factors for higher rates of
smoking and diseases such as hypertension.
The students reported smoking prevalence among people over 40 years in both Orange (7%) and
Wagga Wagga (5%) as low compared to the national average (12.8%). Forty-two percent of
participants at Orange and forty-four percent at Wagga reported having smoked more than 20 packs
of cigarettes in their lifetime (or more than one cigarette each day for a year).
Between 14-19% of smokers reported being advised by their doctor to quit smoking. Interestingly,
approximately twice as many people in Wagga than Orange attempted to quit smoking on the advice
of their doctor. The student researchers suggested there was an opportunity to improve educational
strategies to address this.
A second group of students, Darsha Sritharan, Johannes Le Roux and Qiushi Li, investigated whether
eating apple pomace, the material left when apples are juiced, has use in encouraging muscle
growth when used as a food supplement.
Large quantities of apple pomace are produced in the Orange region as a by-product of apple juice
production. The students were interested to determine whether it might have use as a nutraceutical
– as a source of ursolic acid which other researchers have suggested can aid in skeletal muscle
development.
The students prepared a crude dried extract of pomace and observed its effect when fed to rats in
drinking water. The study showed no change in muscle growth but the researchers suggested some
variations to their experimental approach may result in a different outcome.
Photo: clinical science students presenting their research findings at CSU; from L to R, Seraj
Shamsirad, Johannes Le Roux, Darsha Sritharan, Ghazaleh Mobin, Andy Tran and Qiushi Li