In a test of the effectiveness of garlic for lowering​ cholesterol, 44 subjects were treated with garlic in a processed tablet form. Cholesterol levels were measured before and after the treatment. The changes ​(before−​after) in their levels of LDL cholesterol​ (in mg/dL) have a mean of 3.4 and a standard deviation of 18.8. Construct a 95​% confidence interval estimate of the mean net change in LDL cholesterol after the garlic treatment. What does the confidence interval suggest about the effectiveness of garlic in reducing LDL​ cholesterol?       What is the confidence interval estimate of the population mean μ​?   (?) ​mg/dL<μ<(?) ​mg/dL ​(Round to two decimal places as​ needed.) What does the confidence interval suggest about the effectiveness of the​ treatment?     A. The confidence interval limits contain ​0, suggesting that the garlic treatment did not affect the LDL cholesterol levels.   B. The confidence interval limits do not contain ​0, suggesting that the garlic treatment did affect the LDL cholesterol levels.   C. The confidence interval limits contain ​0, suggesting that the garlic treatment did affect the LDL cholesterol levels.   D. The confidence interval limits do not contain ​0, suggesting that the garlic treatment did not affect the LDL cholesterol levels.

Definition Definition Measure of central tendency that is the average of a given data set. The mean value is evaluated as the quotient of the sum of all observations by the sample size. The mean, in contrast to a median, is affected by extreme values. Very large or very small values can distract the mean from the center of the data. Arithmetic mean: The most common type of mean is the arithmetic mean. It is evaluated using the formula: μ = 1 N ∑ i = 1 N x i Other types of means are the geometric mean, logarithmic mean, and harmonic mean. Geometric mean: The nth root of the product of n observations from a data set is defined as the geometric mean of the set: G = x 1 x 2 ... x n n Logarithmic mean: The difference of the natural logarithms of the two numbers, divided by the difference between the numbers is the logarithmic mean of the two numbers. The logarithmic mean is used particularly in heat transfer and mass transfer. ln x 2 − ln x 1 x 2 − x 1 Harmonic mean: The inverse of the arithmetic mean of the inverses of all the numbers in a data set is the harmonic mean of the data. 1 1 x 1 + 1 x 2 + ...