Coffee And Sugar to Improve Your Brain Efficiency

By Laura Fay, posted on December 1, 2010 at 12:22 pm

The Holidays… For most people, this period rhymes with chocolate, tea, coffee, and lots of sweet treats. As we all know, all these are to be consumed in moderate quantities. But what if a mix of coffee and sugar suddenly became legitimate to boost your brain efficiency?

A study by a team of Spanish researchers showed that a combination of caffeine and glucose could enhance the efficiency of brain activity. The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging to analyze brain activity during the n-back task, a performance task that evaluates sustained attention and working memory. Participants were divided into groups drinking either caffeine, glucose or the two combined, and another drinking a placebo consisting only of water. They were tested before and after.

The caffeine and glucose group showed reduced brain activation associated with the task in the bilateral parietal cortex and the left prefrontal cortex which both participate in attention and working memory processes. The results thus showed that the two substances combined improve cognitive performance in terms of sustained attention and working memory by increasing the efficiency of the areas of the brain responsible for these two functions. In other words, the brain becomes more efficient with a combination of sugar and caffeine as fewer resources are required to produce the same level of performance.

One Comment


  1. I guess “reduced” activity is a good thing here…but I didn’t read the entire article as I’m tired as #@!%.

    Coffee, unless you make it yourself with spring or filtered water is basically a cup of concentrated fluoride.
    There are many form s of sugar, some beneficial. Most likely what goes into coffee is not beneficial. That is, especially these days with our current loads of toxicity via “food for the rabble” (just coined).
    Bottom line here reflects the Systems’ bottom line as in go for it and to hell with consequences.

    As much as I Love coffee, I haven’t had a cup in years…
    Try Cacao nibs or powder. But if you’ve digestion problems there may be a small issue in easy elimination.

    Devil in the details….

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