Drinking Water Reduces Brain Power?

stewart.hector writes: "BBC Online reports on research that suggests drinking water at the wrong time can reduce brain power. Here's the story."

Comments

Chewing gum effect in reverse

[Stormie]

Dr Rogers thinks that the temperature of the drinks might explain part of the effect. The body has to divert resources to deal with the local cooling effect in the gut.

When I was at uni, I read in the newspaper one day that a study had shown improved mental performance from people who were chewing gum. The theory was that while you were merrily chewing away, the exercise your jaw was getting required extra blood to be pumped to your head. Some of this ended up in your brain, and it performed better, all pumped up with nice fresh oxygenated blood.

(OK, that's a horrible pseudoscience explanation, but I'm no biologist, I'm a programmer!)

Anyway, from that day on I always took a pack of gum into exams, to chew while I worked. Dunno if it helped, but at least psychologically it probably did. :-) Is this a similar effect in reverse? All the blood rushes to your stomach to warm it up after your glass of ice-cold water, and leaves your brain starved? Nice one.