If you read newspaper and internet stories about foods and health, you have no doubt come across articles touting the memory boosting properties of certain foods, like blueberries. Even on this site, a number of posts have touted the memory-boosting properties of certain foods:
- A substance, epicatechin , found in chocolate, has been shown to improve spatial memory. Specifically, it boosted the ability of rats to remember the location of a platform in a murky pool of water. This worked better when the rats were getting regular exercise.
- Another chemical, theanine, found in tea, has been found to boost attention skills, when used in conjunction with caffeine (also found in tea). Human participants were better at picking out a target on a computer screen when their pre-game water had been spiked with the caffeine/theanine combination.
But should you really be scarfing down blueberries, tea and chocolate when you study? Well, maybe, because they all taste good, though the chocolate might make you gain weight, and the tea might keep you awake. But we don’t really know if they will be of any use in the kind of memory involved in studying for school. We don’t know that because we have not seen the research. It is tempting, but foolish, to assume that our brains will respond in much the same way as rat brains, or that success on laboratory tasks will translate to success in real-world tasks. In fact our brains are different in some important ways from rats’ brains (a bigger ratio of cortex to brain, for example) and not all memories are the same (semantic memory, the stuff you know, involves different parts of the brain than procedural memories, what you know how to do).
So where is the real-world, human subjects research? It is quite possible it is sitting in a file-drawer somewhere. It is notoriously difficult to publish studies which show no effect. Perhaps some reputable scientist has actually done research on the effects of chocolate or tea on memory for texts, for example, and found no effect. It would not be easy to get that research into a journal, let alone on to WebMD or USA Today.
Or perhaps the research just hasn’t been done. For reasons I have difficulty fathoming, many scientists, including journal editors, may be more interested in carefully controlled studies using extracts of chocolate on rats doing laboratory memory tasks. It just sounds so much more scientific than the relatively simple experiment of testing tea or chocolate on actual people studying.
Meanwhile, I see no harm in boosting your consumption of blueberries, or replacing other fattening foods with chocolate, or replacing coffee with tea. And who knows, you may someday find yourself swimming in murky water and be glad you did.
This article reminds me of one I read a while ago while trying to justify my chocolate habit. The article summarizes research that suggests chocolate helps your health. Its antioxidants prevent cell damage and inflammation. Other studies showed that eating dark chocolate can lower your cholesterol and blood pressure. Contrary to popular belief, another study showed that chocolate can actually improve your skin, because its antioxidants absorb UV rays, protecting your skin. In terms of boosting memory, the article mentions a study that suggests that the increased blood flow associated with chocolate can improve your memory, attention span, reaction time and even problem-solving skills. However, the details of this study are conveniently absent from the article. http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/12/20/health.chocolate/index.html
Comment by Allison Richmond — April 7, 2008 @ 2:58 pm
Besides improving spatial memory, an article found here -http://www.beonliving.com/index.php/health/article/176-cacao–protection-against-’lethal-ills’ – about the research of Dr. Norman Hollenberg says that epichatichen can also prevent dementia, heart disease, stroke and cancer! His research was based on a group of people in Panama called the Kuna. They drink up to 5 cups of cocoa a day and are observed to not develop high blood pressure. Further examination showed that the Kuna had rates of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer of less than 10% and they do not get dementia. However, when the Kuna people migrated to new areas with different cultures, the rates when up to normal, suggesting that their health was not attributed to genetics but environmental /dietary factors. Epicatichen is thought to prevent dementia (the cognitive decline of memory, attention, problem solving and language) by repairing free radical damage in the brain.
Interestingly, an article, http://www.beonliving.com/index.php/health/article/index.php/fitness/article/177-boost-your-training-with-superfoods! says that antioxidants are crucial for people who exercise because exercise produces free radicals. This is interesting because in the experiment with the rats who exercised and received diets richer in epicatichen performed better at finding the platform. Wouldn’t the effects of exercise producing extra free radicals and the intake of antioxidants cancel each other out? I wonder why no one suggested that the rats that were getting exercise performed better because their muscles were stronger for swimming around?
Comment by Jessica Lance — April 8, 2008 @ 9:05 pm
You may find it exhilarating to have finally found an excuse to eat that snickers or sugar packed, over-priced, blueberry muffin, but like many fads, this one may fade (just as you may fear your memory will).
I am twenty, and already very concerned about the state of my memory. I witnessed my grandmother’s mental deterioration due to alzheimers when I was in middle school. It made my father extremely frustrated and upset. He was devastated to see his mother in that state, but at the same time dreading and afraid of his possible future state. Almost ten years have passed and I can tell that his memory, most notably for names, the placement of his things, appointments, etc. is worsening. However, in the past year he has joined a water aerobics group that meets twice a week and eats a very health conscious diet; including a breakfast of all natural oatmeal sprinkled with flax seed and topped with blueberries. Every time I go home for a break both his body and mind are noticeably more fit. Perhaps it is the blueberries, but I am pretty certain it is the combination of his thoughtful decision to exercise daily, read more, and consume a balanced diet.
However, I find that for myself personally, being in college, eating on a meal plan, overworking, and constantly depriving myself of sleep, it would be very difficult to stay dedicated to such a plan. So, I have done some research and have started taking 30 drops of ginkgo daily. Gingko seeds have been used in traditional Chinese medicine for thousands of years to treat a variety of ailments and conditions. Today it used by many to prevent memory loss In various studies have shown promising results in terms of memory enhancement. It is believed to have a preventative effect on the onset of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. I think in general, it is important to seek out herbal methods in place of prescription drugs. In my opinion there must be a reason why this herb has been used for thousands of years.
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/ginkgo/
Comment by elise silver — May 10, 2008 @ 1:33 pm