SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

None of these qualifies as "brain booster". A few years ago the results of a recent study from New Zealand would probably have made the mainstream news: A double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over experimental design was used. "Results revealed that ingestion of glucose and sucrose led to poorer performances on the assessed tasks as opposed to fructose and the placebo" (Ginieis 2017). These days, however, sugar is everyone's boogieman, anyway. It is thus unlikely that you will read about Rachel Ginieis paper anywhere else, but here - and that despite the fact that its results could have a profound influence on your cognitive abilities. Learn more about fructose at the SuppVersity Bad Fructose not so Bad, After All! Learn its Benefits. Fructose From Fruit is NOT the Problem Americans Don't Eat More Fructose Today An Apple A Day, Keeps... & More (Guestpost) Fructose is Not Worse Than Sugar How Much Fructose is Bad for the He...

The complex neuronal clockwork in your brain needs water to run smoothly. But how much water does it need? If you have been reading SuppVersity articles for more than a week, you will know that a lack of water can easily turn an Einstein into a Neanderthal ( learn more ). Fully convincing experimental evidence for the efficacy and, more importantly, optimal amount(s) of water as a 'nootropic supplement' in non-dehydrated individuals, as it has just been provided by a recent study from the  University of East London  and the  University of Westminster  (Edmonds. 2016), however, has not been available... Not available, yet?! That is, obviously, before Edmonds and colleagues set out to investigate the dose-response characteristics of the effects of acute water supplementation on cognitive performance and mood. Learn all about plain and not so plain water at the SuppVersity Hydrogen Rich Water = Quackery? Glass of Water Before Meals as Diet Tool ...

Tea will naturally contain both theanine and caffeine, but will it work, as well as supplemental theanine and caffeine? While everybody knows caffeine (see last SV article comparing caffeine to coffee ), theanine aka L-γ-glutamylethylamide or N5-ethyl-L-glutamine, an amino acid analogue of the proteinogenic amino acids L-glutamate and L-glutamine, is less well known, but as a recent study shows not less potent when it comes to its effects on cognition and neurophysiological measures of selective attention aka "focus" on a task / object (Kahathuduwa. 2016). You want to know why the researchers from the Universities of Peradeniya, Kelaniya  and the Texas Tech University  know that? Let's take a look at what the researchers did and why they conclude that the effects of caffeine & theanine add up. You can learn more about caffeine at the SuppVersity For Caffeine, Timing Matters! 45 Min or More? Coffee - The Good, Bad & Interesting Three Cups of C...

Supplemental fish oil: Panacea or rat poison? Well, I know you all love your fish oil. And you probably know I don't ;-) And this is why I am "happy" (yes, I am biased, here) to report the unfortunate results of a Danish study ( Cheatham. 2011 ), which investigated the effects of moderate dose fish oil supplementation @ 1.5 g/d n-3 LCPUFA (vs. olive oil as placebo) during the first 4 months of lactation on the cognitive performance of 98 children. The data was obtained at the age of seven by a combination of an "age-appropriate Stroop task , and the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire ". The results were quite unequivocal: [...] analyses including all participants revealed the speed of processing scores were predicted by maternal n-3 LCPUFA intake during the intervention period ( negative relation ) and maternal education (positive relation). Stroop scores indicative of working memory and inhibitory control wer...

" Chromium "? Sounds familiar, eh? Not too long ago, everybody was all over supplementing with chromium picolloniate to improve insulin sensitivity, to lose fat and to gain muscle. Most human studies, however, failed to reproduce the encouraging results from rodent studies. From todays perspective fat loss and muscle gain, if they occurred would probably have to be considered an indirect effect due to improvements in insulin management, the latter, on the other hand appear to be very real and may even benefit your cognitive performance. When an international team of scientists supplemented male Wistar rats ( n  = 60; weighing 200–220 g) on a high-fat (40%, high-fat diet (HFD)) diet with either chromium-glycinate (CrGly) or chromium-acetate (CrAc) at doses of 0, 40, or 80 μg/kg body weight (BW) for 12 weeks, chromium supplementation ameliorated the detrimental effects of HFD on GLUTs, and Memory (32% reduction in expressions of glucose transporters 1 and 3 (GL...

While Phosphatidylserine is marketed mainly for its purportedly beneficial effect on exercise recovery and cortisol levels, a recent study by Parker et al. ( Parker .2010 ) showed that supplementation with 400 mg/day Phosphatidylserine (SerinAid, Chemi Nutra) for 14 days before testing, significantly reduced the time needed for a correct calculation by 19.8% (1.27 s per calculation; Placebo: 6.4 s, PS 5.13 s; p = 0.001), and reduced the total amount of errors by 33% (PRE: Placebo: 27, PS: 18, p = 0.18) at PRE compared to placebo. Exercise significantly improved SST time (p = 0.03). PS did not improve SST compared to placebo post exercise. So, wheter you have your math test before or after your workout, do not forget to get your daily dose of phosphatidylserine in ;o)

They keep coming, and I keep repeating myself: vitamin D is the most interesting "novel" supplement out there. A recent study Mohsen et al. ( Mohsen. 2010 ) found that vitamin D deficiency, apart from increasing risk of fractures and metabolic diseases, also impairs learning. Investigating the learning process of water maze the scientists found: The C-D [vitamin D deficient] group needed a longer time to reach the platform than the control and C+D [vitamin D repleted] animals (P<0.0001), demonstrating that vitamin D deficiency negatively affected the maze learning. On the other hand, calcitriol supplementation did not significantly influence the spatial learning. In view of these facts: If you do not notice that I posted the following only a few days ago,  "So, do your heart, your pancreas and, not to forget, your bones a favor and grab some vitamin D supplements ." ( Vitamin D: 1 Billion People Worldwide Are Vitamin D Deficient or Insufficient ) you either did...