blogUT

I had a friend in first year who used to take part in all these medical studies. We used to joke that he was the human guinea pig. He made quite a bit of money from it though. I always thought it was an interesting way to bring in some cash: selling your body for the advancement of science. I never bothered to look into it before though. Afterall, some of the studies he did involved taking drugs that had a 1 in 1000 chance of killing him… or something like that.

Since I entered grad school, however, money has been a bit more of a concern. One doesn’t exactly live glamourously on a Master’s stipend. So a while back, as I was logging into my.utoronto.ca, I saw this call for participants in an appetite study. The details of the study went along the lines of the follows: different snacks will be provided; the participant is required to fill out a form indicating hunger, fullness, palatability, and at the end, a pizza lunch will be served; compensation is $10/session. So, I basically had to eat snacks, and then eat some pizza, and then get paid. I sent in an email right away to sign up.

A week or so later, I went in to meet the grad student running the study, and after a short multiple choice questionary (to make sure I was a desireable candidate for the study), I was signed up. The study consisted of 4 morning sessions, each 1 week apart, with each session lasting about 1 hour. I was told I had to fast for 12 hours before the study, and some blood samples would be taken. Fair trade for pizza and cash, I thought.

I’d have to say the worst part of the study was having to eat the “snack” at the first session. I don’t know who they were kidding, but that bowl of clear, chemical-tasting liquid would have made a poor snack even for robots… yes, robots. “And try to drink all of it,” said the grad student, with a smile. “Yeah, no problem!” Man, what did I get myself into. But hey, I signed up for the deal, so I figured I’d do my best. So I held my nose and chugged the thing.

After that, as it turns out, it was all smooth sailing. The questionares I had to fill out were simple and only took 2 minutes. However, I had to wait 15 minutes between questions, so I ended up doing a fair bit of reading. (sidenote: I was reading Lost Horizons, by James Hilton, the orginal tale that popularized the idea of Shangri-La. Great book!) The pizza served at the end of each session was of the mediocre frozen pizza variety, but hey, it was free and all you can eat! The grad student even brought in hot slices while I was eating to swap for the cold ones, how considerate! The snack at the other sessions was vanilla ice-cream. Thank God, no more liquid chemicals! Even the blood samples were minor discomforts compared to that horrid “snack”. Oh, I also got to do this test that tests my body fat percentage as part of the study. Apparently, I have 11.8% body fat (which puts me in the range of athletes, 6-13%, with regular fit individuals at 14-17%). I guess those trips to the gyms are paying off afterall.

So that’s my story of earning $40 by eating ice cream and pizza. If you’re interested in participating in these studies, take a look at my.utoronto.ca. They usually have a few posted at the top, in University News & Events. Also, keep an eye out for posters around campus. They’re usually posted on the poster boards in the hallways.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 10:53 pm and is filed under On Campus, Survival Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.