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Open The impact of food on cognition: Potential implications for brain fog in ME;24 June 2020 online

Discussion in 'Recruitment into current ME/CFS research studies' started by Sly Saint, Jun 28, 2020.

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  1. Sly Saint

    Sly Saint Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    "
    The impact of food on cognition: Potential implications for brain fog in ME
    24 June 2020

    This study is looking to recruit both healthy individuals and those with a diagnosis of MILD ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue). The aim is to investigate how food impacts your performance on 2 short cognitive tests, a colour naming task and a memory task.
    Participants will be allocated to either a food or no food group & will take the 2 cognitive tasks online before and after either your evening meal or a 30 minute break with no food. The study takes place between 5pm & 8pm."

    "
    Ethical approval
    This research has been reviewed and approved by Arden University Psychology Departments ethics committee on 23.6.20.

    About the researcher
    This study is part of the researchers dissertation to achieve their MSc Psychology degree."

    full details
    https://www.callforparticipants.com...on-potential-implications-for-brain-fog-in-me
     
    Sly Saint, Jun 28, 2020
    #1
    Dolphin, Peter Trewhitt, Barry and 1 other person like this.
  2. Hoopoe

    Hoopoe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    A simple but potentially interesting experiment. You can participate online. Unfortunately I don't qualify because they only want what they call mildly ill patients.
     
    Hoopoe, Jun 28, 2020
    #2
    Snow Leopard and ladycatlover like this.
  3. Wonko

    Wonko Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I don't qualify either :(

    (for several reasons on the exclusions list)
     
    Wonko, Jun 28, 2020
    #3
    ladycatlover likes this.
  4. MeSci

    MeSci Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    "You must NOT have a medical condition that affects memory or attention"

    Yet you must have ME? :confused:
     
    MeSci, Jun 28, 2020
    #4
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  5. Barry

    Barry Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Yes, badly worded. Presumably it should say "Apart from ME/CFS, you must NOT have any other medical condition that affects memory or attention"
     
    Barry, Jun 28, 2020
    #5
    alktipping, MEMarge, ladycatlover and 1 other person like this.
  6. Keela Too

    Keela Too Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    30 minute break with “no food” is hardly a “no food” situation! Most of whatever you ate 30mins ago will still be digesting! Surely a longer gap (say 3 hours or more) would be a more realistic “no food” situation. Half an hour after food would be “fed” in my view!
     
    Keela Too, Jun 28, 2020
    #6
    daftasabrush, Arnie Pye, MarcNotMark and 13 others like this.
  7. ladycatlover

    ladycatlover Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I'm too old. What is it with these people excluding older patients?

    Plus I wouldn't regard myself as "mild" ME either.

    They should be looking at moderate cases, who would probably be only to happy to take part, even if it did mean crashing. If only "mild" cases are looked at it probably won't tell us much.
     
    ladycatlover, Jun 28, 2020
    #7
    alktipping, Peter Trewhitt, Simbindi and 1 other person like this.
  8. Hoopoe

    Hoopoe Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    The idea is to do a cognitive test before the evening meal and afterwards. The no food group will wait 30 minutes instead of eating and then redo the test.
     
    Hoopoe, Jun 28, 2020
    #8
    alktipping, Hutan and Dolphin like this.
  9. Mij

    Mij Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Pretty sure this this workshop will lead nowhere.
     
    Mij, Jun 28, 2020
    #9
    Sarah Restieaux, rvallee and Keela Too like this.
  10. Keela Too

    Keela Too Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Oh! Okay!

    So what period do they all not eat for, prior to their meal or no meal situation? It really isn’t clearly worded!
     
    Keela Too, Jun 28, 2020
    #10
    alktipping, Hoopoe and Wonko like this.
  11. Wonko

    Wonko Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    It seems obvious that in order to standardise food intake that, in the absence of instructions stating whether or not to limit eating before hand, that everyone will be fed immediately upon arrival, so everyone starts from a similar base.

    Whilst the idea of this 'study' sounds 'interesting' I would suspect that if there is, as seems likely, an effect, it is likely that this will be linked to the amount of food, and/or possibly the type.

    e.g 100g of steak is likely to have a different effect to 100g of mars bars, or even apples, all of which I would expect to have a slightly different effect, at least in noticeability, to a kilo of something, maybe swiss style muesli lol.
     
    Wonko, Jun 28, 2020
    #11
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  12. Keela Too

    Keela Too Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Not sure that would work Wonko. Cos then the unfed group would have been recently fed. Surely better to tell everyone to start from an empty stomach (3-4hours since food) situation.

    Edit to add: Perhaps there will be better instructions after sign-up??
     
    Keela Too, Jun 28, 2020
    #12
    Invisible Woman, alktipping and Wonko like this.
  13. Midnattsol

    Midnattsol Moderator Staff Member

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    All the potential and then this? Food and cognition is interesting, but I'd be more interested in long term effects.
     
    Midnattsol, Jun 28, 2020
    #13
    ME/CFS Skeptic and alktipping like this.
  14. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    I assumed it was looking for immediate effects, like blood supply being diverted from brain to stomach, or is that an old wives tale? Thinking clearly might be more difficult after a heavy meal, but on the other hand if your blood sugar is low or you're very hungry, a light meal may help you think better.
     
    Trish, Jun 28, 2020
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  15. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Even if something were to come from this, I can't see how it would be relevant. By the usual standards it's not completely useless but I can't see the potential use here. Doesn't seem like a good use of resources. All those small badly controlled experiments have amounted to nothing, it's just busywork.
     
    rvallee, Jun 28, 2020
    #15
    Invisible Woman, alktipping, Wonko and 1 other person like this.
  16. Mij

    Mij Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I don't know, it sounds more like a pet project to me.
     
    Mij, Jun 28, 2020
    #16
    alktipping likes this.
  17. Trish

    Trish Moderator Staff Member

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    It's a student project for an MSc. The main point of such projects is to do soemthing that produces data so they can show they can do a bit of a literature search, design and experiment, analyse data and write up the results and conclusions, all in the space of a few months. I wouldn't expect too much, we've seen worse.
     
    Trish, Jun 28, 2020
    #17
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  18. Midnattsol

    Midnattsol Moderator Staff Member

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    Yes. But the problem comes when you throw ME into the mix. Is digestion too much of an exertion for the pwME in the study? Will they even screen for that? If I'm on the end of my limit a meal can cause me to crash (and the macros of the meal might be important, how digestable the food is, details I don't believe a psych msc has knowledge about). Being hungry might also be too much exertion given all the things the body does to maintain blood sugar/otherwise keep the system running on low energy. (Although how long the participants have been without food is not mentioned, so this might not come into it)

    Yes a msc is for learning, it's still sad if the project is badly designed. I don't like the excuse about time, if the time limit is such that the project can't be done properly then really what's the point? Learning to do shoddy work? (There might be more to it that's not shared, though)
     
    Midnattsol, Jun 28, 2020
    #18
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  19. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I see on her website she has only recruited 23 of the 68 participants she wants with four weeks to go.
     
    Dolphin, Jul 30, 2020
    #19
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