Andrew wrote:
<<Is Uni of Toronto the Canadian equivalent of Harvard?>>

Errr, it is a well-respected University (do you know that the first studies
leading to the development of the glycemic index were done there?) but
likely more publicly-funded than Harvard.  Increasingly, however, medical
research at Canadian Universities is at least partially privately-funded
(i.e., pharmaceutical companys), setting up some interesting ethical
quandaries.  Now, more than ever, we always need to ask ourselves, "who is
funding this research?"  Its a generally well-recognized truth than you can
design research to give you whatever conclusion you want before starting the
research.


<<WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health) Feb 22 - The results of animal studies
suggest that a high-fat, carbohydrate-poor diet may impair brain function
over time, according to researchers at the University of Toronto.

Rats that were fed high-fat diets were slower in learning new tasks
compared with rats fed a standard diet, investigators report in the March
issue of Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. The high-fat diet animals
also performed more poorly on tests of learning and memory.>>


According to the below summary of studies, lack of carbs may be more
responsible for impaired brain function than a "high fat diet".

Anyway, here's a Nutrition News Focus looking at "sugar" and brain function

Sugar Makes You Smarter

A provocative statement but supported by the facts. A number of studies have
previously shown that young children did better in school when they ate
sweetened breakfast cereals and that adults also scored better when
consuming glucose compared with placebo. Now, a study in 20 healthy elderly
people shows that consumption of carbohydrates in the morning led to better
memory and task performance. The study appeared in the September 2000 issue
of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Similar benefits were seen with consumption of glucose, potatoes, or barley.
People who ate carbohydrates were better able to recall lists of words, pay
attention, and connect numbers assigned randomly on a page. Although the
foods were not significantly different from each other, there was a trend to
better performance with glucose and lower performance with barley. The blood
glucose level of the subjects was not related to the results of this study.

HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: The preferred fuel source for your brain is
glucose, the form of sugar the body makes in the liver if you don't eat
enough carbohydrate. Regulation of blood sugar is connected to mental
performance in all age groups. This is yet another reason not to follow fad
diets that promise to keep blood sugar at constantly low levels. In fact,
the elderly with the best insulin sensitivity and lowest body-mass index had
the worst initial cognitive performance.

11.29.00

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