4.6. Strengths and Limitations
This work has several strengths. First, the study included objective sleep data to validate sleep duration and verify compliance to sleep protocols. Second, both salt-taste function and hedonic measures were examined, which provide a more comprehensive evaluation of salt taste. Third, sleep curtailment was individualized based on habitual sleep duration of participants, which ensured the consistency of sleep curtailment between participants. Fourth, the study incorporated a one-week wash-out period between the two taste test sessions for study 2 to avoid carry-over effects. Finally, this project employed a randomized cross-over design, the gold standard for experimental rigor.Several limitations are also noted. Results from this work may have limited generalizability, as mostly young adults were tested. Future studies should consider testing the forced-choice paired-comparison tracking procedure in other populations, such as teenagers and older adults. Additionally, the study included only testing short-term sleep curtailment, and only one 24-h dietary recall was obtained after the habitual and curtailed nights of sleep; hence, this may not represent habitual intake. While menstrual cycle status was not accounted for, studies of young, healthy women report limited effects on total sleep time [