Overview
The purpose of this study is to determine whether a 30 day beef intervention can improve peak cognitive performance in young, normally menstruating adult women. The control group will consume a daily portion of macronutrient equivalent vegetable source of protein.
Description
The purpose of the Nutrition, Vision, and Cognition in Health Sport: Beef (IONSport-Beef) study is to conduct a randomized controlled trial to evaluate beef as a nutritional intervention to optimize visual cognitive training performance in generally healthy, normally menstruating women. Female subjects of reproductive age (18-40) will be randomly placed in one of two dietary treatment groups: one serving of beef per day for 30 days or a non-meat protein replacement control. Cognitive performance will be measured in 15 training sessions over 10 days using the sophisticated NeuroTracker CORE (NT) 3-Dimensional (3D) software program. It is hypothesized that women consuming 1 serving of beef per day for 30 days will have the highest plasma levels of the beef rich nutrients and demonstrate the highest visual cognitive performance and improvement as compared to the no beef control.
Eligibility
Inclusion Criteria:
- 18-40 year old female
- Eumenorrheic
Exclusion Criteria:
- Neuroactive medications such as Ritalin, Adderall, antidepressants etc
- Dietary supplements
- Iron intake above 15mg/day
- Protein intake above 1.5 g/kg/day
- More than 1 mild concussion lifetime or 1 mild concussion within the last 12 months
- History of affective disorder
- Visual impairments uncorrected by glasses
- Amenorrhea or dysmenorrhea
- Currently being treated for anemia
- >3 servings of beef per week
- <20 BMI or BMI >35
- Consume >100mg caffeine/day (>1 cup of coffee or soda)
- <1 hour/week physical activity, >4 hours/week vigorous activity
- Depression score >18 (Beck Depression Inventory)
- <20 Kcal/kg/day