Hi! My name is Copeland Frazee, and I am a sophomore at Florida State University.This summer, I will be working on an IDEA Grant research project that focuses on a simple, yet important idea: how does what we eat impact how we think, move, and age.
My partner, Jonathan, and I will be looking at the relationship between skin carotenoid concentration (which are pigment compounds your body receives from eating fruits and vegetables) and cognitive and motor functioning in adults 65 and older. While there is an abundance of research that suggests fruits and vegetables are an important component of healthy aging, we want to know more about the impact of the carotenoid compounds specifically. This more focused knowledge could help to better guide people toward more specific interventions and diet choices.
You may be wondering, how in the world do you measure the concentration of these tiny compounds? In the lab, we use reflection spectroscopy, also known as (and more fun to say), the Veggie-Meter. The Veggie-Meter is a non-invasive way to measure carotenoid concentration from the tip of your finger. An individual places his or her finger in the device, and the machine reads the concentration.
The ease of using this machine led us to another idea that we have now worked into our research question. Is the Veggie-Meter potentially a better method to record dietary intake than traditional food logging? Typically, when recording a participant’s dietary intake, we rely on the participant’s ability to remember all of the foods they have eaten over the past few days – down to the number of carrots in their soup! By comparing the results of the Veggie-Meter to the self- reported food logs, we can determine if this machine provides more accurate data. The findings based on this project could potentially impact future research at FSU and beyond!
As stated above, this project is a collaborative effort. My partner Jonathan and I met through our participation as research assistants for our mentor, Dr. Julia Sheffler. Dr. Sheffler’s lab, Integrative Science for Healthy Aging, functions under the College of Medicine’s Center for Translational Behavioral Science. Dr. Sheffler is dedicated to making life better, easier, and healthier for aging populations. The picture below is from a time our lab went to visit an adult day care center over the holidays. My team won bingo 2 times!
My interest in joining this lab is rooted in my passion for serving older adults. In high school, I volunteered at memory care and assisted living facilities. At FSU, I have worked with the Alzheimer’s project, serving as an assistant in the respite rooms throughout Tallahassee. I am a proud Tallahassee local – 5th generation. My grandma is one of my biggest inspirations. She is 88 and can do over 50 pushups in 1 day!
I am blessed for the opportunity to complete this project as part of an amazing team, with hopes that the results will be a piece of a larger effort to make life better for geriatric populations. My dream is to go to the FSU College of Medicine and become a geriatrician to serve the Tallahassee community. Receiving the IDEA Grant was a huge milestone in achieving my goal of helping older populations, and I could not be more excited for this summer!
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