期刊名称:Journal of Clinical Biochemistry and Nutrition
印刷版ISSN:0912-0009
电子版ISSN:1880-5086
出版年度:2009
卷号:44
期号:3
页码:285-290
DOI:10.3164/jcbn.08-245
出版社:The Society for Free Radical Research Japan
摘要:In clinical trials for dietary supplements and functional foods, the study population tends to be a mixture of healthy subjects and those who are not so healthy but are not definitely diseased (called “borderline subjects”). For such heterogeneous populations, the t -test and ANCOVA method often fail to provide the desired treatment efficacy. We propose an alternative approach for the efficacy evaluation of dietary supplements and functional foods based on a change-point linear regression model. The model does not require the assumption of a constant treatment effect and provides clinically interpretable results. By employing the AIC-based profile likelihood method, inferences can be made easily using standard statistical software. The proposed method was applied to the Garcinia study data, and the merit of the method was demonstrated by comparing it with traditional methods.