Citation

Lindseth GN, Lindseth PD, Jensen WC, Petros TV, Helland BD, Fossum DL. Int. J. Aviat. Psychol. 2011; 21(3): 269-282.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/10508414.2011.582454

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of diet on cognition and flight performance of 45 pilots. Based on a theory of self-care, this clinical study used a repeated-measure, counterbalanced crossover design. Pilots were randomly rotated through 4-day high-carbohydrate, high-protein, high-fat, and control diets. Cognitive flight performance was evaluated using a GAT-2 full-motion flight simulator. The Sternberg short-term memory test and Vandenberg's mental rotation test were used to validate cognitive flight test results. Pilots consuming a high-protein diet had significantly poorer (p < .05) overall flight performance scores than pilots consuming high-fat and high-carbohydrate diets.