Effect of Morning Snack on Cognitive Performance in Adults

Effect of Mid-morning Snacks on Cognitive Performance, Satiety, Food Intake, and Glycemic Response in Normal Weight Adults

To characterize the effects of three chocolate snacks on cognitive performance, subjective appetite, food intake control, and glycemic response in normal weight adults.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Cognitive Change; Nutrition; Satiety; Food Intake Control
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Control; Other: White chocolate; Other: Dark chocolate 1; Other: Dark chocolate 2

Detailed Description

On 4 separate mornings, 7 days apart, 12 hours after an overnight fast, and 3 hours after a standardized breakfast of a cereal bar, orange juice and fruit cup, participants will consume isocaloric snacks of white chocolate, 2 types of dark chocolate or control (water), followed by an ad libitum pizza lunch 90 minutes later. Upon arrival, at baseline (0 minutes), participants will be asked to complete the motivation-to-eat, global vigor and subjective emotion visual analogue scales (VAS), a battery of cognitive performance tasks and have blood samples taken, as reported and validated in our previous studies. Over the 90 minute testing period, blood samples will be taken,the VAS questions will be completed and cognitive tasks will be completed. Cognitive performance assessments will include learning and memory, spatial memory, attention and processing speed, and executive functions. VAS measuring physical comfort is completed pre- and post-meal. Ad libitum food intake from a test meal will be measured.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 26
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5B 2K3
      • School of Nutrition, Ryerson University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years to 35 years (Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• be between 18 and 35 years of age
• be healthy and have a have body mass index (BMI) between 18.5 and 24.9
• not be taking any medications, not smoking, and
• not have allergies to chocolate, dairy or gluten
• be tested during the early follicular phase of their menstrual cycle for women

Exclusion Criteria:

• anyone with food sensitivities or allergies to chocolate, dairy or gluten,
• smokers
• diabetic or overweight/obese individuals.
• Restrained eating habits, defined as scoring greater than 11 points on the eating habits questionnaire

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Crossover Assignment
• Masking: Double

Number of Arms

4

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Placebo Comparator: Control; 250 mL of water	Other: Control; Water
Active Comparator: White Chocolate; White chocolate (40 g)	Other: White chocolate; Experimental snack treatment
Experimental: Dark chocolate 1; Dark chocolate (40 g)	Other: Dark chocolate 1; Experimental snack treatment
Experimental: Dark chocolate 2; Dark chocolate (46 g) possibly containing caffeine and/or theobromine	Other: Dark chocolate 2; Experimental snack treatment

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Verbal declarative memory	One of six word lists composed of 15 words will be audio presented and participants will be asked to write them down. The word list will be presented 3 times and the participant will immediately write down words after each time the word list is presented. This test will take 5 minutes	At 15 minutes
Change from baseline spatial memory	Assessed using a spatial pattern recognition test on the Membrain Application. There will be a grid of 9 boxes with circles randomly located inside each box. Participants will be asked to remember where circles are located in each box. This test is done 6 times at each time-point, with each test having different random locations of circles. Each test will take 20 seconds.	At Baseline, 15, 45, and 75 minutes
Change in verbal declarative memory from the 15 minute time-point	Participants will be asked to recall and write down all the words from the word list presented at the 15 minute time-point. This test will take 2 minutes.	At 45 and 75 minutes
Change from baseline executive function	Will be assessed the Stroop task via the Membrain application. Participants will be presented with a list of words presented in colors that match the word (congruent, the word 'red' presented in red) or colors that do not match the word (incongruent, the word 'red' presented in blue). Participants will be asked to identify the color of the word, not the word itself. The task is scored for the number of correct and incorrect colors identified, as well as total time to completion. This test will be at each time-point and will take 1 minute to complete.	At Baseline, 15, 45, and 75 minutes
Change from baseline working memory and executive function	A random 3 digit number will appear on the screen of the Membrain Application and the participant will have to continually subtract 3 from this number. At each time-point, participants will also complete the same test, except will subtract 7 continuously. This is a 2 minute test.	At Baseline, 15, 45, and 75 minutes
Change from baseline attention and reaction time	Using the Membrain Application, Aa continuous string of single digit numbers appear on the screen, one at a time (each appearing for about one second). After seeing three consecutive ascending odd numbers, participants click the 'odd' button. When they see three consecutive, ascending even numbers, they click the 'even' button. When they see the number "1", they click the 'tertiary' button. This test is 5 minutes in length.	At Baseline, 15, 45, and 75 minutes

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change from baseline subjective average emotions	Measured using 100 point visual analogue scales. Participants mark on this line to describe their feelings.	At Baseline, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 minutes
Change from baseline global vigor	Measured using 100 point visual analogue scales. Participants mark on this line to describe their feelings.	At Baseline, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 minutes
Change from baseline subjective average appetite	Measured using 100 point visual analogue scales. Participants mark on this line to describe their feelings.	At Baseline, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 minutes
Change from baseline blood glucose concentration	Blood glucose concentration (mmol/L) will be measured in whole blood using YSI 2300 STAT PLUS (YSI Incorporated, Yellow Springs, OH)	At Baseline, 15, 30, 45, 60, 75 and 90 minutes
Food intake	After other measures at the 90 minute time-point, participants will have lunch and food intake will be determined by weighing the meal before and after serving. The net weight of the test meal will be converted to kilocalories	At 90 minutes

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Ryerson University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 5, 2018
• Primary Completion (Actual): September 1, 2018
• Study Completion (Actual): September 1, 2018

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: August 16, 2018
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 16, 2018
• First Posted (Actual): August 20, 2018

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): May 21, 2019
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: May 19, 2019
• Last Verified: May 1, 2019

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Cognitive performance; Healthy adults; Chocolate; Food intake; Glycemic response
• Other Study ID Numbers: Ryerson-REB-2017-339

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No