A Randomized Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Trial of a Purported Dietary Supplement Cognitive Enhancer in Healthy Teenage Subjects
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Introduction: The prevalence of using dietary supplements among teenagers is rising. In particular, the use of nutritional supplements to improve cognitive performance is becoming more commonplace. Given the prevalence of use, it is important to empirically assess the effects of nutritional supplements on cognitive performance. The current study sought to test the effects of an existing cognition supplement, Brain Doctors’ Formula® (BDF) Mega Brain Boost® (MBB), across different cognitive domains in a healthy teenage population. Methods: We carried out a 6-week randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind study. The study lasted approximately 42 days (6 weeks) for each participant. Study visits included screening and baseline testing, week 3 interim and week 6 end of study visit. Cognition outcomes were measured by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Toolbox Cognitive Battery of Testing (Dimensional Change, Flanker, and Pattern Comparison) and a Symmetry Span Task at baseline, interim, and final visits. Another efficacy outcome was the self-assessment of mind wandering, which was captured in a study daily diary from baseline to the end of study visit. There were two study groups, including one MBB group and one placebo group. Twenty-four participants were screened and randomized to include 12 participants in each group. Results: The change from baseline to interim (Week 3) and from baseline to the final visit (Week 6) did not show a significant between-group difference on any measure of cognition (all p-values >0.05) except one. There was a significant between-group difference with a large effect size at Week 3 showing that the MBB group performed significantly better than the placebo group on the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task. Conclusions: This study suggests that MBB potentially improves executive cognitive processes (as assessed by the Dimensional Change Card Sort Task) in healthy teenagers. However, this effect was only significant at the interim visit. Therefore, it is uncertain if there are any lasting beneficial effects. Further research should be conducted in a larger group of participants and focus on broader measures of executive function.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.009 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".