Providing participants with health results like cholesterol levels and dexa body composition scans was crucial for retention in a caloric restriction study.

“the camarad re keep interrupting Eric but what did the subjects tell you like you got to know these people really well why did they stay in the subject why did they stay in the study I mean it can't be pleasant to be that calorically restricted for uh two years or did they say actually you know guys it really felt lousy for six months and then it didn't feel lousy at all and I really became you know I I came to really enjoy this like I'm very curious as to what their subjective experience was it's it's interesting that you are asking because we we have been interested in that and we are even now following up these people with studied from 2005 to 20 2008 but it was really a kind of building a team between the investigators and the study coordinators and you know the the study managers and all that and the people he was also providing them with some of the results and we had to fight for that because uh you know normally you don't want to have people having their results but we said you know it's not going to change their we tell them about their total cholesterol HDL L LDL and it's not going to change anything or the body composition they love to see this dexa and you know uh my percent body fat went from uh you know 15 to 12 in a guy and so on and and uh he was kind of building a uh we had Migra with the uh with the volunteers we had every two months we had a reception and all that sending postcards for birthdays and all these kind of things are part of the retention and building a team between the investigators and the study volunteers and I think we succeeded in that”

“the retention rate I thought that it was exceptional that between the three sides and it was much more difficult in Boston to be honest you know uh than he was in Baton Rouge or even in St Louis but anyway retention was exceptional”