London: For smokers willing to kick the butt, scientists have an unusual solution - gargling with a glass of lemonade. In a new study, scientists have found that the interaction of sugar (known as glucose) with the tongue boosts attention as well as energy and can improve self control. This could help keep smokers away from the cigarettes at least in the short-term, the Daily Mail reported.
The study was published in journal Psychological Science. A team from the University of Georgia conducted self-control tasks on 51 students to see if a mouth rinse with glucose boosts attention as well as energy. The first task, which depletes self-control, was to meticulously cross out Es on a page from a statistics book. The second was the Stroop task, where participants were asked to identify the colour of various words flashed on a screen, which spell out the names of other colours.
The Stroop task's goal is to turn off the student's tendency to read the words and instead see the colours. Half the students rinsed their mouths with lemonade sweetened with sugar while performing the Stroop test, and the other half with Splenda-sweetened lemonade. Results showed students who rinsed with sugar, rather than artificial sweetener, were significantly faster at responding to the colour 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," Professor Leonard Martin, of the
01:19 PM, Nov 10, 2012
