Having trouble remembering a phone number? Eat some mashed potatoes, then try again.
Eating common carbohydrates, like mashed potatoes, may improve memory for up to an hour after ingestion. In a University of Toronto (UT) study of 20 men and women age 60 to 82, memory improved by about 37 percent after eating barley, 32 percent after mashed potatoes, and 8 percent after drinking a glucose beverage.
Previous research suggests that glucose boosts memory by producing acetylcholine—a chemical that enhances brain cell communication. But the UT study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, found that while barley was least effective in raising blood glucose levels, it was most effective in enhancing memory. Lead author Randall J. Kaplan, a nutritional science Ph.D. candidate at UT, believes there may be other substances in foods that affect memory. "We think it may have something to do with signals that gut peptides transmitted to the brain," he says. The study's long-term aim is to find food-based treatments for reducing memory loss in Alzheimer's and diabetes patients.
