Glucose Review Article
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Rationale: Energy is the capacity for work, or the expenditure of effort. Glucose is a primary energy for the brain, and the brain uses glucose to perform the psychological work of thought and behavior.
Hypothesis: Glucose levels are therefore hypothesized to represent the capacity for thought and behavior, with effortful thought and behavior being impaired when glucose levels are lower than optimal.
Summary of Results
- (number) relevant findings:
- (number) supporting hypothesis: (have percent too, calculate percent?)
- (number) rejecting hypothesis
- (number) supporting null hypothesis
Conclusion: Experimental work confirms that lower glucose levels undermine effortful psychological processes, including self-control, memory, and perhaps performance on difficult tasks.
Relevant Evidence
Citation | Finding(s) |
Conclusion: |
1 |
Benton, Owens, & Parker (1994) |
Glucose drink, compared to placebo, improved memory |
Support |
2 |
Lee & Bernicky (1999) |
Glucose levels not related to daily living skills (showering, toileting, and dressing) in patient with brain injury |
Null |
3 |
Meikle, Riby, & Stollery (2004) |
Glucose drink, compared to placebo, improved memory |
Supports |
4 |
Metzger (2000) |
Glucose drink, compared to placebo, improved recognition memory for faces |
Supports |
5 |
Messier, Desrochers, & Gagnon (1999) |
Glucose drink, compared to placebo, improved memory |
Supports |
6 |
Fucetola, Newcomer, Craft, & Meslon (1999) |
Glucose drink, compared to placebo, improved memory recall and performance on a delayed match to sample task among older participants. Glucose drink, relative to placebo, impaired attention among younger participants. |
Supports (for older participants). Rejects (for younger participants). |
7 |
Messier, Pierre, Desrochers, & Gravel (1998) |
Supplementary glucose increased the primacy effect. |
Supports |
8 |
Mohanty & Flint (2001) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, reduced memory for emotional stimuli but improved memory for neutral stimuli. |
Rejects (for emotional stimuli). Supports (for neutral stimuli). |
9 |
Martin & Benton (1999) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved memory performance on the Brown-Peterson task among participants who had fasted but not among participants who had not fasted. |
Supports (among fasted participants). Null (among non-fasted participants). |
10 |
Donohoe & Benton (1999) |
Glucose drink improved performance on the Porteus Maze and Verbal Fluency tasks. |
Supports |
11 |
Manning, Honn, Stone, Jane, & Gold (1998) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved long-term memory and auditory processing. |
Supports |
13 |
Foster, Lidder, & Sunram (1998) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebos, improved long-term verbal free recall task and cued recall task but not on other memory tasks. |
Supports (for long-term verbal free recall task and cued recall task). Null (for other memory tasks). |
14 |
Winder & Borrill (1998) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, did not influence memory. |
Null |
15 |
Manning, Stone, Korol, & Gold (1998) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved memory storage and retrieval for narrative-prose material. |
Supports |
16 |
Green, Elliman, & Rogers (1997) |
Glucose levels unrelated to cognitive processing fluency. |
Null |
17 |
Driesen, Cox, Gonder-Frederick, & Clarke (1995) |
Low glucose levels, relative to higher levels, correlated with slower reaction times. |
Supports |
18 |
Gold, Deary, MacLeod, Thomson, & Frier (1995) |
Low glucose levels, relative to higher levels, correlated with poorer cognitive performance. |
Supports |
19 |
Allen, Gross, Aloia, & Billingsley (1996) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved memory recall (of the Rey/Taylor Figure), verbal fluency, and figural fluency. |
Supports |
20 |
Blake, Varnhagen, & Parent (2001) |
Emotional material increased glucose levels and improved memory for the material. |
Supports |
21 |
Scholey, Harper, & Kennedy (2001) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved performance on math problems and a word retrieval task (non-significant trend) but not on a word memory task. |
Supports (for math and word retrieval). Null (for word memory). |
22 |
Warburton, Bersellini, & Sweeney (2001) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, did not influence performance on a visual information test, verbal reasoning test, verbal memory test, and non-verbal memory test. |
Null |
23 |
Sunram-Lea, Foster, Durlach, & Perez (2002) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved memory for words while performing a secondary task, and improved spatial and working memory, but did not influence memory for words without performing a secondary task and did not influence other memory performance. |
Supports (for some tasks). Null (for other tasks). |
24 |
Awad, Gagnon, Desrochers, Tsiakas, & Messier (2002) |
Higher glucose levels, relative to lower levels, associated with poorer memory performance. |
Rejects |
25 |
Craft, Dagogo-Jack, Wiethop, Murphy, et al. (1993) |
Low glucose levels, relative to higher levels, associated with poorer memory performance among patients with Alzheimer’s. |
Supports |
26 |
Hall, Gonder-Frederick, Chewning, Silveira, et al. (1989) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved performance on Wechsler Memory Scale |
Supports |
27 |
Lingenfelser, Overkamp, Renn, Hamster, et al. (1992) |
Low glucose levels, relative to higher glucose levels, associated with impaired cognitive and psychomotor function. |
Supports |
28 |
Cromer, Tarnowski, Stein, Harton, Paul, et al. (1990) |
Low glucose levels, relative to higher glucose levels, unrelated to short-term auditory memory, vigilance, and impulsivity. |
Null |
29 |
Benton, Brett, & Brain (1987) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved attention and reduced frustration. |
Supports |
30 |
Benton (1990) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved performance sooner on a reaction time task. |
Supports |
31 |
Cueto, Jacoby, & Pollitt (1998) |
Glucose levels were unrelated to performance on cognitive tests, namely on number discrimination, Peabody Picture Vocabulary, Raven Progressive Matrices, stimulus discrimination, reaction times, and Sternberg Memory Search. |
Null |
32 |
Utter, Kang, Robertson, Nieman, Chaloupka, Suminski, & Piccinni (2002) |
A glucose drink, compared to placebo, increased running intensity among marathon runners. |
Supports |
33 |
Ford, Scholey, Ayre, & Wesnes (2002) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, did not influence memory for neutral or emotional words. |
Null |
34 |
Green, Elliman, & Rogers (1997) |
Glucose levels unrelated to cognitive processing efficiency. |
Null |
35 |
Morris & Sarll (2001) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved performance on listening span task among students who missed breakfast. |
Supports |
36 |
Pettersen & Skelton (2000) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved declarative memory among previously concussed participants and to impair declarative memory among non-concussed participants. |
Supports (among concussed) Rejects (among non-concussed) |
37 |
Messier & Gagnon (1996) |
Glucose drink, relative to baseline, improved memory. |
Supports |
38 |
Manning, Hall, & Gold (1990) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved declarative memory but not short-term memory. |
Supports (for declarative memory). Null (for short-term memory) |
39 |
Allen, Gross, Aloia, & Billingsley (1996) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved recall of the Rey/Taylor Figure, verbal fluency, and figural fluency. |
Supports |
40 |
Lingenfelser, Overkamp, Renn, Hamster, Boughey, Eggstein, & Jakober (1992) |
Low glucose associated with impaired performance on most cognitive tasks. |
Supports |
41 |
Frederick, Vogt, Cox, Green, & Gold (1987) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved performance on narrative memory tests and the Wechsler memory scale. |
Supports |
42 |
Hall, Gonder-Frederick, Chewning, Silveira, & Gold (1989) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved performance on the Wechsler memory scale. |
Supports |
43 |
Benton & Sargent (1992) |
Low blood glucose correlated with poorer performance on spatial memory test. |
Supports |
44 |
Manning, Parsons, & Gold (1992) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, improved memory. |
Supports |
45 |
Messier & White (1987) |
An injection of 2 but not 1 or 3 g/kg improved memory of conditioned response among rats. |
Supports (for 2 g/kg) Null (for 1 or 3 g/kg) |
46 |
Cromer, Tarnowski, Stein, Harton, & Thornton (1990) |
Glucose levels unrelated to short-term auditory memory, vigilance, and impulsivity. |
Rejects |
47 |
Benton & Owens (1993) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, reduced frustration while playing a frustrating computer task following a negative statement from the experimenter. |
Supports |
48 |
Benton, Brett, & Brain (1987) |
Glucose drink, relative to placebo, reduced frustration and improved attention. |
Supports |
Suggestions or Criticism for Improvement