Studies Showing That Breakfast Boosts Your Brainpower

I have picked example studies that span the entire age range for humans to show you that breakfast enhances your ability at ANY age. Whether you have a 6-year-old daughter starting first grade, are a sophomore in college, have been in the corporate world for two decades, or are retired and watching The Price Is Right, breakfast will make your day a WHOLE LOT easier and more productive. If you've previously read the glucose studies, you'll notice that the trends are much the same: the more difficult the task is, the more beneficial eating a good breakfast is. This should be expected since a good breakfast provides you with a source of neurotransmitter precursors and a steady supply of glucose throughout the morning hours. And keep in mind that I have picked only a FEW example studies, there are literally DOZENS of scientific studies with similar results to the ones I describe below. So if you have a big day ahead of you, make sure you slop down some oatmeal! Mmmmmm tasty.

Study 1 - Children Who Eat A Good Breakfast Have Better Attention and Memory¹

Remember when your mom made you eat breakfast even if you didn't want to? Well, it's a good thing she did, otherwise you probably wouldn't be as smart as you are! Breakfast makes kids smarter, period. This study looked at children ages 9-16 and put them into one of four groups: Shreddies (a type of cereal), Cheerios (another cereal), a glucose drink, and no breakfast. Both cereals have complex carbohydrates that take a while to break down, providing a supply of glucose that lasts longer than a glucose drink. This was a 5-day study in which the children all ate (or didn't eat) breakfast at 8:00 a.m. and were tested at 9a, 10a, 11a, and 12:00p for attention and memory. Here's what the results were: all the groups lost attention as the morning went on (as expected), but the cereal groups' attention spans were MORE THAN DOUBLE that of the glucose drink group and the no breakfast group by 12:00p. Also, by 12:00p the ability of the no breakfast group to recall words from a list went down by 12%, and that of the glucose group went down by 27%. BUT, the cereal groups actually WENT UP by 3% and 5%! And there's more, the speed at which the cereal groups were able to recall words was 2-3 TIMES FASTER than the no breakfast group.

So what can we deduce from this study? Kids who eat a wholesome breakfast have better attentions and memories than kids who don't. And glucose only boosts your brainpower if it's in a form that digests SLOWLY, like cereal. The glucose drink, which is basically just sugar water (think of pop), is absorbed by your body WAY TOO QUICKLY. So while you might get a quick fix and short-term improvement in brainpower, you will crash shortly thereafter, leaving you about as smart as a half-full box of marbles. If you're a parent who has kids, you HAVE TO give your kids a good breakfast in the morning, because if you don't you're putting them at an immediate disadvantage. They're going to learn less and fall behind their peers who DO eat breakfast. If you add this up over years of schooling it can make the difference between a doctor and a sales clerk. Even if you don't eat a good breakfast (and I hope you will now) you have an OBLIGATION to make sure your kids do.

Study 2 - Adults Think Faster And Make Fewer Errors A Full Two Hours After Eating Breakfast²

This study, done at University College in the UK, separated adults (19-28 years old) into two groups: a "breakfast group" which was given a Nestle Build-Up drink containing 400 calories worth of carbohydrates, protein, and fat, and a "no breakfast group" which was not given anything to eat. Each group was tested on the ability to remember the placement of simple object pictures (i.e. an apple, a dog, a house, etc.) on a grid after allowing 20 seconds to study the grid, and in a separate test, to recall as many words as possible from a tape recording. These tests were given to both groups 2 hours after the breakfast group had consumed their drink. The amount of time it took the subjects to complete the tests, the number of errors, and their blood glucose levels were recorded. Remember how important I said glucose is to your brain? Well, here's some proof: the "breakfast group" had glucose levels that were an average of 32% HIGHER than the "no breakfast group", and they were over 25% FASTER on both tests! The researchers found a DIRECT CORRELATION between blood glucose levels and the AMOUNT OF TIME TAKEN to recall the objects or words and the NUMBER OF ERRORS. The HIGHER the glucose levels, the FASTER the students completed the tasks and the FEWER the number of errors. And remember, the tests were taken 2 HOURS AFTER BREAKFAST.

Study 3 - Elderly People Are Just Plain Smarter After Consuming Various Nutrients For Breakfast³

Do you know any cool old people? I know tons. I grew up in a town in the boondocks of Minnesota where the average age of the town was close to 70. So while I didn't have many friends living nearby, I did have plenty of wisdom imparted on me because they ALWAYS had something interesting to say. Well, now I have something interesting to tell them!

This study gave 61-79 year-olds three different drinks for breakfast (there was also a placebo control group): one that contained glucose, one with protein, and one with safflower oil (in other words, fat). The subjects were asked to perform several tests 15 and 60 minutes after consuming the drinks and the results were VERY interesting. ALL THREE of the groups had ENHANCED MEMORIES and performed much better on a paragraph recall test at the 15 minute mark than the placebo group. Protein actually decreased the amount of forgetting in a delayed recall test, safflower oil improved attention after 60 minutes, and glucose improved abilities on a test requiring speed and general brainpower and improved paragraph recall at the 60 minute mark. This means that in addition to glucose, protein and even fats can boost your brainpower! Beware though, not all fats are created equal - perhaps you've heard that omega-3 fatty acids are DELICIOUS TO YOUR BODY but trans-fats are DEBILITATING TO YOUR BODY. This all points toward another incredibly strong reason (I'm talking MUSKOX strong here) why you must eat a good, BALANCED breakfast. If carbohydrates, protein, and fats all improve your cognition in different ways, then don't you think you should eat a bit of all of them for breakfast?

So here's the take-home message:

Eating breakfast makes ANYONE smarter, hands down. If you have children you HAVE AN OBLIGATION to feed them a good breakfast to give them the best chance of doing well in school and succeeding in life. If you're in high school, college, or working in the real world, breakfast will help you do everything BETTER AND FASTER. And if you're elderly, breakfast might just help you keep up with the grandkids, atleast for a little while. The extra 15 minutes in the morning you spend eating breakfast will be made up 10-fold in productivity. A BALANCED, SLOW-DIGESTING breakfast is best because it fuels you for HOURS, not minutes.

Now PUT THAT DONUT AND COFFEE DOWN because in the next article in this series I'm going to tell everything you need to know about the WHO WHAT WHERE WHEN WHY AND HOW of eating a good breakfast. Here comes the AIRPLANE!

References:

Wesnes et. al. Breakfast reduces declines in attention memory over the morning in schoolchildren. Appetite. 41:329-331. 2003.
Benton D and Sargent J. Breakfast, blood glucose and memory. Biological Psychology 33:207. 1992.
Kaplan et. al. Dietary protein, carbohydrate, and fat enhance memory performance in the healthy elderly. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 74:687-93. 2001.