Thursday, November 8, 2012

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Leonard Martin

Gargling Sugar Water Boosts Self-Control, Study Finds
According to a study co-authored by University of Georgia professor of psychology Leonard Martin ... a mouth rinse with glucose improves self-control.
...Half of the students rinsed their mouths with lemonade sweetened with sugar while performing the Stroop test, the other half with Splenda-sweetened lemonade. Students who rinsed with sugar, rather than artificial sweetener, were significantly faster at responding to the color rather than the word.
..."Researchers used to think you had to drink the glucose and get it into your body to give you the energy to (have) self control," Martin said. "After this trial, it seems that glucose stimulates the simple carbohydrate sensors on the tongue. This, in turn, signals the motivational centers of the brain where our self-related goals are represented. These signals tell your body to pay attention."
Holy Crap.
This nonsense is going to be picked up on every news outlet on the planet.
There is nothing sugar addicts would rather hear.

Sugar sweetened lemonade.   The perfect bacterial trigger.
This experiment is measuring strep induced immune response, not glucose sensing.

And I especially like they way he warps "attention" into ''self-control".   They are not the same thing.
Trust me, I have no self control when my attention (read: obsession) gets too high.    

If he did his experiment using kids from Georgia-  he needs to do it again.
And remove all the students with gum disease.
I wonder if there will be enough left to test...