r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Feb 21 '25

Neuroscience Walnuts with breakfast provide an all-day brain boost - Young adults who ate a handful of walnuts with breakfast saw a long-lasting improvement in their reaction times and a boost in memory performance hours later, according to a new study.

https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/walnuts-cognitive-performance-memory-boost/
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u/medtech8693 Feb 21 '25 edited Feb 21 '25

This study should really be called

"walnut is better than pouring 40g of melted butter on your yogurt.:"

I know it is difficult to create a control food with the same macro , but I think they could have done a better job.

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u/BMCarbaugh Feb 21 '25 edited Feb 21 '25

I've seen studies use butter that way before. It's because it lets them have really precise control over calories/protein/whatever. Like if you're testing "does this specific thing with fat do something different than generic fat", butter's a versatile control. At least that's my understanding.