In recent years, healthy adults are exposed to high demand cognitive activities such as workload stress, demanding schedules, and continuous multitasking on a frequent basis.  These demanding cognitive activities can lead to decline in performance, as well as difficulties maintaining attention, motivation, and focus. There is increased interest in safe and effective methods to improving cognitive performance. The right natural health product supplementation, such as MindGain, can be a realistic and natural way to improve cognitive performance during demanding cognitive activities.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of a natural health product called MindGain on various cognitive performance measurement in a group of healthy adults following repetitive cognitive testing.

Principal Investigator: Dr. Delphie Dugal-Tessier, Staterra Inc.

Design: A 3-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial to evaluate both the acute and loading efficacy of a self-described cognitive enhancing nutritional supplement, MindGain, on mental performance during repetitive cognitive testing.

State of project: We finished recruiting participants as of August 2022.

Location: The study is exclusively online for those residing in Canada.

Interested individual will be invited to complete an online screening questionnaire.  Eligible individual will then be invited to book a 15-min screening phone interview.  Those individuals who are still eligible to participate will be asked to sign a consent form and will be randomized into the trial.  The study consists of 4-testing sessions of approximately 2h30.  Please read the consent form for all information on the protocol (LINK COMING SOON).

You are eligible to participate in this study if you are:

1. A healthy man or women 
2. Aged 21-70 years, 
3. Access to the internet and computer
4. Willing to undergo a washout prior to enrollment if taking nootropic type supplements,  
5. Participant must be capable and willing to provide consent, understand exclusion criteria, instructions and protocols
6. To speak and to read English fluently

You cannot participate in this study if you are:

1. Pregnant, planning to become pregnant during the study time, or breastfeeding
2. Allergy/intolerance to any ingredient of the nutritional supplements
3. Colour Blind
4. Currently have or at risk of liver disease, kidney disease and/ or a seizure disorder, or any serious medical conditions with major medical interventions anticipated during the trial. 
5. Any non-controlled medical condition which could influence results or could be worsened by the participation in the study. 
6. Metabolic diseases such as diabetes
7. Major medical or neurological illnesses
8. Requiring treatment with a drug which might obscure the action of the study treatment

 This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study will evaluate both the acute and loading efficacy of a self-described cognitive enhancing nutritional supplement, MindGain, on cognitive performance during repetitive cognitive testing. The results of this study will permit us to determine whether the right dietary constituents are beneficial to enhance cognitive performance during repetitive cognitive tasks. Preventing stress induce cognitive impairment through natural health product supplementation can be a realistic and natural way to improve cognitive performance during repetitive cognitive testing.

We finished participants recruitment as of August 2022, but if you are interested in the product, please contact Dr. Delphie Dugal-Tessier at delphie@staterra.ca . Include in the subject line: Cognitive Performance Study.

Funding source: Industrial Research Assistant Program (IRAP) grants.

Project Period: 11/2021-present 

REB: This research project has been cleared by National Research Council Canada Research Ethics Board (NRC-REB)-2021-113

Whether you participate in endurance or high intensity sports, the body can be depleted of essential nutrients. Without proper nutrition, physical exertion can lead to the lack of optimal performance.

Many athletes during physical activity will have nutritional needs above and beyond sedentary individuals, making it difficult to obtain the required nutrients through whole foods alone. 

Nutritional supplementation can be a great option to improve training and recovery.  However, many companies in the nutritional supplement industry offers bulk products to athletes without any regard for the differing metabolic requirements.  We went back to the beginning, we wanted to study what an individual actually needed during different types of exercise.  More specifically, in studying changes in molecules such as amino acid in amateur athletes. 

The cells in your body use the protein you eat to build the proteins they need to perform all the function of life.  Essentially, protein can be broken down in different amino acids. These amino acids can flow through the blood to keep the body happy; they make energy, eliminate waste, build muscles, and even help cells “talk” to each other.

We set out to determine changes in amino acids in the blood during different types of physical activity.  We used the technology of mass spectrometry, to examine changes in amino acids from dried blood samples of athletes at set intervals over the course of physical exertion.  This study was conducted in two-phases. 

Phase 1: During endurance type activity

Phase 2: During anaerobic and high intensity interval training

This 2-phase project has shown to be extremely successful; we have shown that across different type of exercise mode, average concentration of amino acids that belongs to energy, neurotransmitter, and nitrogen metabolisms show specific patterns.  This data is useful to supplement intermediate athletes in a sport specific manner.  See our supplementation recommendations based on your type of physical activity (https://staterra.ca/ourshop/)

The big finding of these 2-phase study is that we unravelled stress dependent responses related to cognition, especially in the energy and neurotransmitter metabolism stress pathways. These novel findings have led to the development and commercialization of the Health Canada approved nootropic product called MindGain.  See current research for more information.