Effects of a single dose of a flavonoid-rich blueberry drink on memory in 8 to 10 y old children.

OBJECTIVE Recent evidence from animals and adult humans has demonstrated potential benefits to cognition from flavonoid supplementation. The aim of this study was to investigate whether these cognitive benefits extended to a sample of school-aged children. METHOD Using a crossover design, with a washout of at least 7 d between drinks, 14 children ages 8 to 10 y consumed either a flavonoid-rich blueberry drink or a matched vehicle. Two h after consumption, the children completed a battery of five cognitive tests comprising the Go-NoGo, Stroop, Rey's Auditory Verbal Learning Task, Object Location Task, and a Visual N-back. RESULTS In comparison to the vehicle, the blueberry drink produced significant improvements in the delayed recall of a previously learned list of words, showing for the first time a cognitive benefit for acute flavonoid intervention in children. However, performance on a measure of proactive interference indicated that the blueberry intervention led to a greater negative impact of previously memorized words on the encoding of a set of new words. There was no benefit of our blueberry intervention for measures of attention, response inhibition, or visuospatial memory. CONCLUSIONS Although findings are mixed, the improvements in delayed recall found in this pilot study suggest that, following acute flavonoid-rich blueberry interventions, school-aged children encode memory items more effectively.