blood glucose, decision making, and future orientation

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:29:24 +0000

Interesting research. As an evolutionary mechanism, it makes sense – if you need food *now*, planting seeds is less attractive than eating them. More likely we will see this immediately tested in marketing. If you want to sell pie in the sky, serve pie. If you want to have them take the immediate offer because it’s to your advantage to do so, serve celery and carrots. Or something like that

Conversely, having low energy (or low blood glucose levels) may make an individual focus more on the present. The finding that a diet soda drink increased the degree of future discounting suggests that artificial sweeteners may alarm the body of imminent caloric crisis, leading to increased impulsivity.

The authors conclude that if controlling blood glucose levels may affect our decisions for later versus current rewards, then “reducing the degree of fluctuation in blood glucose may offer a possible means for the treatment and intervention of some impulsive disorders, anorexia, drug addiction, and gambling addiction.”

Sweet future: Fluctuating blood glucose levels may affect decision making.

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blood glucose, decision making, and future orientation