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.
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.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Enrollment
80
Beef patty will replace one of the participants protein servings each day for 30 days. Each serving is 114 grams of 90% lean ground sirloin given to participants as an uncooked frozen patty.
Veggie patty will replace one of the participants protein servings each day for 30 days. No beef will be consumed during this period. The veggie patty is commercially available Morningstar veggie burger and is given to participants in commercial packaging as a frozen precooked patty.
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas, United States
Mean NeuroTracker Speed Threshold over 300 trials
Cognitive Performance on the Neurotracker 3D software program that includes 20 trials in each session. Particpants will track 4 of 8 balls with increasing speed if successful and slower if unsuccessful.The speed threshold is optimized performance for that session. Across the 15 sessions, mean speed threshold is defined as the average speed threshold for the 15 sessions.
Time frame: 15 sessions (300 trials) over 10 days at the end of the nutritional intervention
Maximal NeuroTracker Speed Threshold over 300 trials
Cognitive Performance on the Neurotracker 3D software program that includes 20 trials in each session. Particpants will track 4 of 8 balls with increasing speed if successful and slower if unsuccessful. The speed threshold is optimized performance for that session. Across the 15 sessions, maximal speed threshold is defined as the highest speed threshold.
Time frame: 15 sessions (300 trials) over 10 days at the end of the nutritional intervention
Change in NeuroTracker Speed Threshold over 300 trials
Cognitive Performance on the Neurotracker 3D software program that includes 20 trials in each session. Particpants will track 4 of 8 balls with increasing speed if successful and slower if unsuccessful. The speed threshold is optimized performance for that session. Across the 15 sessions, change in speed threshold is defined as the difference between the mean of the first three sessions and the mean of the last three sessions.
Time frame: 15 sessions (300 trials) over 10 days at the end of the nutritional intervention
Blood Markers of anemia
blood levels of B12, iron, CBCs, ferritin, hepcidin
Time frame: Day 1 and Day 30 of the intervention
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