Heart health is exercising the minds of Irish teenagers, judging by many of the health-related entries at this year's BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition, which kicks off today in Dublin.
Subjects under scrutiny include sudden cardiac death, the blood pressure-lowering effects of lavender, whether music can improve exercise performance and the types of bugs that might lurk on the drinks you reach for afterwards.
The unexpected deaths of several school-age children in the past year prompted Aidan Hannigan and Bláithín Hughes to look into Sudden Arrhythmia Death Syndrome (Sads). The third-year students at St Aidan's Comprehensive School in Cootehill polled schools and sports clubs around Cavan and Monaghan and found overwhelming support for installing defibrillators.
Respondents to their questionnaire, which they developed with the help of teacher Joanne Corbett, also felt the Government should fund the equipment and staff training in how to use it, according to Mr Hannigan. "When you look into it you see defibrillators are life-saving equipment. It's terrible that they are not more widespread," he said.
In nearby Bailieborough, students looked instead at whether consuming soft drinks could have an effect on the heart during exercise. Again the project stemmed from media reports of sudden deaths, explained Rachael Farrelly, a second-year student at Bailieborough Community School. She and classmates Aoife Lynch and Eimear O'Reilly compared the blood pressure, temperature and pulse of willing volunteers as they ran, either with or without taking an isotonic drink before the exercise.
Their results showed the drinks had no substantial impact on immediate heart health, but the study has made the students and volunteers more aware of what might be in soft drinks, said Ms Farrelly.
You may want to think about what could be hanging around outside the soft drink cans too, according to Emma Hennessy, a fourth-year student at Scoil Mhuire in Ennistymon, Co Clare. Her project took swabs from cans bought at shops, a bar and a vending machine. When she grew and analysed the cultures at the HSE's public health lab in Limerick, she found that most can exteriors harboured small quantities of the bacteria Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus.
"They weren't in enough quantities to do harm because the cans were stored cold," she explained, but she recommended cleaning the cans with commercially available wipes or with a dilute bleach solution, which her experiments showed left the cans "spotless".
Meanwhile, students at Salesian College in Celbridge wanted to find out if listening to music could improve their endurance for the less-than-spotless sport of cross-country running. Surprisingly, their fitness tests with 30 volunteer runners and rowers showed that using an MP3 player reduced training performance.
It's not what they expected, according to Cillian Ryan, who conducted the study with fellow transition-year students Ross Warren and Shane Walsh. "It decreases performance, that's what we are getting so far," said Mr Ryan as the results were coming to light. "So it looks like you shouldn't listen to music, concentrate on the running instead."
And to help wind down, another project looked scientifically at the effects of lavender on heart health. "We all know someone who has died as a result of high blood pressure and we wanted to look at something that could reduce it," explained Lisa Flynn, a transition-year student at Scoil Mhuire in Ennistymon.
In a well-designed experiment on 40 fellow students, she and classmates Róisín Flynn and Angela Howard found that lavender oil could help relaxation and had a marked and beneficial effect on blood pressure and pulse rate.
The exhibition, which this year received 1,416 entries, is expected to attract more than 36,000 visitors over coming days and aims to make science more accessible to students and the public.
The 44th BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition is open to the public from January 10th-12th, at the RDS, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. Admission for students/concessions is €6, entry for an adult is €12 and a family ticket (two adults and three children) costs €30. For more information see www.btyoungscientist.ie
