Don't have a diet drink before making a major decision...
- From: Lance <lancegary@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:33:58 -0800 (PST)
Got a decision to make? Get some sugar in your system: study
January 30th, 2010 in Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
If you're about to try to negotiate a pay rise, it might be a good
idea to have a sugary drink beforehand, according to a study published
this week in Psychological Science.
Researchers at the University of South Dakota asked 65 students to
answer a series of questions in which they had to choose between
getting a smaller sum of money "tomorrow" or a larger sum in the
future.
The study participants responded to half the questions on an empty
stomach and the other half after consuming a caffeine-free soda
sweetened either with sugar or the artificial sweetener aspartame.
Blood glucose levels were measured at the start of the experiment and
after the volunteers drank the soda.
"Within 10 minutes of drinking a sugary soda, participants' interest
in a larger, future reward was higher," Xiao-Tian Wang, one of the
psychological scientists who led the study, told AFP.
"It's like when you eat: if your blood sugar's high, you can wait
longer to eat," Wang said.
"We did the study to see if the blood glucose level not only regulates
eating behavior but also decision-making. In other words, can you wait
longer to get a bigger reward when your blood glucose levels are
higher?
"We found that, yes, you can," said Wang, who conducted the study with
fellow psychological scientist Robert Dvorak.
Not only did having a higher blood sugar level make study participants
less likely to act impulsively, but taking a diet drink made people
more likely to act on impulse and take the immediate, smaller reward,
Wang said.
"Giving someone a diet drink tells the body that there's an 'energy
crisis' because you're giving it something that tastes good but it has
no calories.
"Your body realizes that and tries to grab everything available right
now. So diet soft drinks lead to increased impulsivity," he told AFP.
(c) 2010 AFP
http://www.physorg.com/news184043762.html
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