User:Katiekuhl1/sandbox

Production (addition)
Ginger has successfully been grown in southwest India on the commercial scale for centuries. However, the agrarian crisis that has persisted in India since the 1990s has given rise to the common practice of South Indian ginger farmers cultivating ginger in other Indian states in order to increase their financial gains. Seasonal cultivation in areas outside the Wayanad district has been beneficial for a new class of “ginger kings,” or farmers who have made millions of dollars after only a couple years of ginger cultivation. Nevertheless, ginger is a financially risky crop due to its sensitivity to extreme rainfall or lack thereof, as well as its susceptibility to disease. Ginger has thus also been the cause of financial demise for many Indian farmers.

Medicinal use and research (addition)
An increasing number of studies have indicated a link between the usage of ginger and the amelioration of metabolic syndrome-related complications, including hyperlipidemia, hypertension, inflammation, and hyperglycemia. One randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study found fasting blood glucose to be reduced by up to 20% after peritoneal dialysis patients were treated with ginger, which result was statistically significant when compared with that of the placebo group. The exact mechanisms by which ginger acts as an antioxidative, anti-inflammatory and hypolipidemic agent have yet to be fully elucidated. However, evidence suggests that ginger’s beneficial properties are related to the functioning of transcription factors including peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, activated by certain hypolipidemic and anti-diabetic drugs, and nuclear factor κB, the inhibition of which has been shown to reduce inflammation.

One meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials studying the effect of ginger on type 2 diabetes found that ginger treatment consistently reduced fasting blood glucose and HbA1c levels. A randomized placebo-controlled trial that similarly found a reduction in HbA1c levels with ginger treatment also found that daily consumption of ginger tablets led to improved insulin resistance indices, such as the quantitative insulin sensitivity check index (QUICKI). Ginger was also shown in certain studies to improve blood lipid profile, which it may accomplish through the downregulation of retinoid-binding protein (RBP), a marker of hyperlipidemia, in abdominal and liver adipose tissue. As research continues, ginger may prove to be a useful addition to therapeutic treatments of type 2 diabetes and other diseases associated with metabolic syndrome, including cardiovascular disease and atherosclerosis. There is no evidence suggesting ginger has any effect on body mass index (BMI), and the herb has not been implicated in the treatment of obesity despite its ameliorative effects on metabolic complications associated with obesity.

The antioxidant content of ginger ranges from 0.86 to 24.37 mmol/100 g, depending on the country in which it originates and is procured.

Article evaluation

 * Ginger
 * Part of WikiProject Dietary Supplements, C-class and high-importance
 * Lots of missing citations under the "Uses" section. Under the "Medicinal use and research" section, it mentions many potential benefits of ginger, including the alleviation of chemotherapy-induced nausea, but says most findings are generally inconclusive. I would like to look further in depth to see if I could find more articles and discuss their findings so that readers have more information from which to weigh benefits and consequences. There are many claims about ginger's possible effectiveness in treating conditions such as dysmenorrhea, but limited citations.
 * The Talk page is not very active, which would make it easier to potentially add useful information without incorporating many different styles of Wikipedia users.
 * Aloe
 * Part of WikiProject Dietary Supplements, C-class and high-importance
 * Talk page was active more than 10 years ago, but little activity now
 * In the "Historical uses" section, there is some mention of studies about Aloe 's potential role in inhibiting tumor growth in animals. Because this article has not been touched much in the past decade, I would like to explore if there has been more research done on Aloe 's antihyperglycemic effect and use as part of a treatment plan for Type II diabetes. There are not many references to scientific articles about such health claims. More tend to be from popular/non-credible sources.
 * Multivitamin
 * Part of WikiProject Dietary Supplements, C-class and high-importance
 * Talk page relatively active in recent years as compared to other 2 potential articles
 * Mentions research that suggests multivitamins do not have extreme health benefits among healthy populations, but they could be more helpful for specific groups of people, such as the elderly, pregnant women, and people suffering from macular degeneration. The article seems to go back and forth on whether multivitamins are useful or not, so while broadening my knowledge on vitamin supplements in general, I'd like to potentially give more structure to the article or focus on one of these subgroups of people and multivitamins' effect on them.

Blackboard submission
My initial Wikipedia articles of interest were Ginger, Aloe and Multivitamin. Ginger interested me because my grandma is a big advocate of using it in tea and foods, but I wasn't sure about any of the actual studied health benefits. Aloe interested me because I have always known of its skin healing qualities, but not much else. Multivitamin interested me because my dad always tells me to take a multivitamin, however I have heard people say they don't have any real effect, so I was curious to dig deeper into this controversy.

I did a lot of my preliminary searching on Wikipedia, Pubmed, Google Scholar and Google. When I looked up multivitamins on Google, I immediately came across a video entitled "Are Multivitamins Really Good For You?" which suggested that if you're healthy, they don't do much or in fact can cause harm. Because multivitamins contain more than 100% of RDA values, but there is also an Upper Intake Level that people do not consider. Fat-soluble vitamins can continue to build up in your body and cause toxicity or other health problems. This intrigued me, and as I looked on the Wikipedia page, I found more information about the dose-response curve, as well as benefits of taking multivitamins in certain populations but possible risks in healthy people. I then searched Pubmed, where several articles related to multivitamins in pregnant women popped up, which is a topic I might like to further explore. In terms of the Wikipedia article, the talk page has not been very active, and there are multiple claims about health effects but not many articles citing such claims, which is why I think it would be a good article to contribute to.

When I looked up Aloe, I found out about lots of uses of the plant that I was completely unaware of. For example, upon looking through some popular articles, I discovered aloe can be used in relieving heartburn and potentially slowing the spread of breast cancer. This intrigued me, and when I searched Pubmed, I found more articles about aloe vera's effect on breast cancer in mice. The Wikipedia article does not include many references to scientific articles so I feel that I could contribute; however, a lot of the immediate articles I found were from decades ago. The article itself mentions a potential antihyperglycemic effect which I would like to explore, and I would also like to improve the sources, as many are from popular websites.

When I looked up Ginger, I found from popular websites that ginger has possible health benefits including reducing nausea, pain and inflammation. When I looked at the Wikipedia article, I found additional benefits including the alleviation of chemotherapy-induced nausea. However, there were not many scientific articles cited to support the claims, and therefore I would like to research more in depth. I found some articles on Pubmed discussing possible antioxidant activity in ginger as well as an ameliorative effect in diabetic nephropathy. Because the Talk page is not very active, I believe that the contributors have not been aware of the more recent data, so I could add more to weigh the benefits and consequences.

I included all my mentions of surprise in my explanation of how I went about the research process above.