Studies Showing That Glucose Boosts Your Brainpower

Here are some great studies PROVING that glucose determines how well your brain works (and mouse brains). I've only included 5 studies to make the points I want to make without becoming long-winded, but know that there are literally HUNDREDS of other studies I could have included. This field of research began back in the early 1980s but not until just recently has much attention been drawn to it, mostly in light of diabetes research.

Study 1 - Rats Use More Glucose When Performing Complex Tasks Than When Performing Simple Tasks¹

This study looked at the amount of glucose present in the part of rats' brains that is used when learning, like when finding their way through a maze. The researchers discovered that when rats were put into a COMPLEX maze, their brain glucose levels dropped by 32%, but when they were put into a SIMPLE maze their glucose levels only dropped 11%. This shows that the MORE demanding and difficult the task is, the MORE glucose your brain uses. What's even COOLER is that the researchers gave another group of mice a glucose injection before they were put into the maze, and lo and behold, their glucose levels DID NOT drop, meaning their brains had ALL THE GLUCOSE THEY NEEDED to perform the task, AND THEY LEARNED THE MAZE BETTER than the group of rats that were NOT given a prior glucose injection! This means that if you have glucose in your system (like from eating a meal) your brain still gets plenty of glucose even when performing difficult tasks. But if you haven't eaten anything, your brain uses glucose FASTER than it can be replaced which is why they saw a decrease in the brain's glucose concentration.

Study 2 - When Old Mice Are Given Glucose Before A Test They Perform As Well As Young Mice²

It's pretty obvious that the older we get the less sharp we become. Our memories begin to fade, we can't learn new things as quickly, and then they make us go in for a colonoscopy. If you're there already, you're going to enjoy the results of this study. Two sets of mice, one young (2 months) and one old (2 years) were tested for memory by using a maze again. As expected, the young mice performed about 50% better than the old mice, retracing previously taken paths much less frequently. But then another trial was performed, only this time the old mice were given a dose of glucose before the test and guess what? The old mice performed JUST AS GOOD AS THE YOUNG MICE! There were NO DIFFERENCES in the abilities of the two groups! The glucose REVERSED the age-related deficits in memory! Start the band, it's disco time!

Study 3 - How Much Does Glucose Improve Young Adult Brains? Let Me Count The Ways!³

A group of college age students was given a glucose drink in the morning (the control group was given a saccharin drink = sweet but no glucose) and then performed a variety of tests from recalling important points in a paragraph to recognizing previously seen faces. What's awesome is that the MORE DIFFICULT the task was, the MORE GLUCOSE HELPED in completing the task. The students were able to recall over 30% MORE details from a paragraph in two different types of passages, performed 10% BETTER on a test that required attention and focus, and performed 20% BETTER on a test that required working memory. Scores did not improve on simple tasks like recalling previously seen words or faces. So, basically, if you're younger and you need to absorb material from a physics textbook or lecture on corporate tax law you also need TO ABSORB SOME GLUCOSE!

Study 4 - Glucose Turns Older Adults Into Lean, Mean, Learning Machines⁴

Again, one group of older adults was given a glucose drink and the other a saccharin drink and then they performed a series of tests ranging from recalling word pairs and geometric shapes to remembering items in a paragraph narrative. The glucose group kicked the control group's butt! They dominated like a rhino in a flock of sheep. In the paragraph recall the glucose group remembered 40% MORE than the saccharin group and also outperformed them, though by slightly smaller margins, on 4 other tests. If you added up the total scores of both teams for all the tests, it was basically like Super Bowl XXIV all over again (49ers over the Broncos 55-10).

Study 5 - Good Glucoregulation = Good Brain

Do you know how good your glucoregulation is? Do you even know what glucoregulation is? Glucoregulation is your body's ability to maintain a relatively stable glucose concentration after eating. People with bad glucoregulation will see a huge jump in their glucose levels and it will take hours for it to come back down to normal levels. Bad glucoregulation is hazardous to your health and is seen in people with diabetes. Diabetics' bodies cannot regulate their glucose levels well and need to inject themselves with insulin to bring their glucose levels back to normal. As you know, poor diet and an unhealthy, sedentary lifestyle can actually CAUSE type 2 diabetes.

But poor glucoregulation doesn't just have adverse side effects on your body, it also KILLS YOUR BRAINPOWER. Studies on both young⁵ and older adults⁶ have shown that good glucoregulation corresponds to improved cognition and bad glucoregulation results in poorer performance on virtually ALL cognitive tests from working memory to verbal declarative memory (like recalling things from a paragraph) to executive control functions (problem solving). So yes, tests have shown that people (and mice) with diabetes can't think as well as people with good glucoregulation. So how do you improve your glucoregulation? By EATING REAL FOODS and EXERCISING! There are plenty of articles on this site to help you do just that.

So here's the take-home message:

GLUCOSE MAKES YOU SMARTER. It improves your MEMORY and ATTENTION, enhances your ABILITY TO LEARN NEW THINGS, and speeds up your REACTION TIME. The MORE DIFFICULT the task is that you need to perform, THE MORE GLUCOSE HELPS YOU. Glucose makes older brains YOUNGER, and younger brains BETTER. However, like the previous article stated, too high of a glucose concentration or too low of a glucose concentration is BAD. And the better your body's ability to regulate it's glucose levels, the smarter you're going to be. So you NEED to start eating good food and exercising because BAD FOOD and NO EXERCISE makes your glucoregulation WORSE.

References:

McNay EC, Fries TM, Gold PE. Decreases in rat extracellular hippocampal glucose concentration associated with cognitive demand during a spatial task. PNAS 97:2882-2885. 2000.
Stone WS, Rudd RJ, Gold PE. Glucose attenuation of deficits in spontaneous alternation behavior and augmentation of relative brain 2-deoxyglucose uptake in old and scopolamine-treated mice. Psychobiol. 20:270-9. 1992.
Korol DL et al. Effects of glucose on cognitive performance in college students. Soc. Neurosci. Abstr. 21:2085. 1995.
Hall et. al. Glucose enhancement of performance on memory tests in young and aged humans. Neuropsychologia. 27:1129-38. 1991.
Awad et. al. Impact of peripheral glucoregulation on memory. Behav. Neurosci. 116(4):691-702. 2002.
Messier et al. Effect of age and glucoregulation on cognitive performance. Neurobiol. Aging 24:985-1003. 2003.

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