What Are Stable Isotopes? How Are Tracers Used in Nutrition Research? (Preview)
Sigma Nutrition Radio
Danny Lennon
4.8 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2022
⏱️ 12 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Stable isotopes have been used as tracers in human nutritional studies for many years. But what are they? Why do we use 'tracers' in nutrition studies? And what are some practical examples?
A chemical element can have different forms or 'isotopes.' These different isotopes have the same atomic number and position in the periodic table but have different atomic masses and physical properties. An isotope that is not radioactive is said to be 'stable'.
In physiology and metabolism research, stable isotopes are used as 'tracers.' As the name implies, it allows us to 'trace' the fate of compounds, thus giving a very detailed insight into the metabolism of nutrients and the regulation of many disease processes.
In this episode, Dr. Alan Flanagan explains what stable isotope tracers are, how they are used to answer nutrition science questions and some examples that you may come across.
This is a 'Nutrition Science Explained' episode. These episodes are exclusive to Sigma Nutrition Premium. To listen to the full episode and access the transcript, you must subscribe to Sigma Nutrition Premium.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome. You are listening to Sigma Nutrition Radio, and specifically this is the third episode in our series called |
| 0:23.8 | Nutrition Science Explained, in which one of us at the Sigma team will be taking a concept |
| 0:29.9 | that is commonly mentioned in discussions about nutrition science and explain exactly what it is, |
| 0:36.5 | give some more background context, and highlight |
| 0:39.2 | some important aspects that you should know about it. |
| 0:42.2 | And so the goal is to aid you in having a deeper understanding that will be relevant for other |
| 0:46.6 | episodes when such concepts are mentioned again. |
| 0:50.8 | And so as an example, today's episode on the use of stable isotopes is going to be something |
| 0:56.3 | that you will have probably heard us mention in relation to a number of different studies |
| 1:00.6 | as stable isotope tracers are used throughout nutrition science. But by understanding it a bit more |
| 1:07.0 | deeply, as you will hopefully get to by the end of this discussion, then you'll be able |
| 1:11.6 | to put other conversations in a bit more context and understand things at a deeper level, which is |
| 1:18.2 | really what we're all about here on the podcast. Now, of course, these nutrition science |
| 1:23.5 | explained episodes, these are specific episodes that are exclusive only to subscribers of |
| 1:30.8 | Sigma Nutrition Premium. So if you are currently listening on the free feed of the podcast, |
| 1:35.9 | then you're only going to hear a bit of a preview of this episode. And to get the full episode, |
| 1:41.3 | as well as the transcript, you're going to have to subscribe to Sigma Nutrition Premium. |
| 1:45.4 | If you're interested in doing so, there's going to be a link in the description box to wherever you're listening. |
| 1:51.0 | If you are a Sigma Nutrition Premium subscriber, then you're going to hear this full episode in your private feed. |
| 1:57.2 | And you'll also be able to get a full transcript to this episode over at the link in the |
| 2:03.2 | description box wherever you are listening. So on to the topic at hand. Today is going to be an |
| 2:09.9 | episode in which Dr. Alan Flanagan is going to talk to you through the concept of stable isotope |
... |
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