Processing Speed Research Analysis

Summary of Processing Speed

Scientific Information on Processing Speed

The Human Effect Matrix looks at human studies (it excludes animal and in vitro studies) to tell you what supplements affect processing speed

Grade	Level of Evidence [show legend]
	Robust research conducted with repeated double-blind clinical trials
	Multiple studies where at least two are double-blind and placebo controlled
	Single double-blind study or multiple cohort studies
	Uncontrolled or observational studies only

Outcome	Magnitude of effect ? The direction and size of the supplement's impact on each outcome. Some supplements can have an increasing effect, others have a decreasing effect, and others have no effect.	Consistency of research results ? Scientific research does not always agree. HIGH or VERY HIGH means that most of the scientific research agrees.	Notes
Coconut Oil	Minor	- See study	Study was unable to properly assess coconut oil as it was used as an active control; some benefit appears apparent relative to fish oil.
Ginkgo biloba	Minor	Moderate See 2 studies	In older individuals, there appears to be an increase in processing speed without a sacrifice in accuracy
Melissa officinalis	Minor	- See study	A decrease in processing speed appears to occur following lemon balm ingestion, which may be related to the sedation effects
Nigella sativa	Minor	- See study	Trail making test time in older adult men appears to be reduced modestly with daily supplementation of nigella seed extract
Phosphatidylserine
Modafinil
Peppermint

All comparative evidence is now gathered in our A-to-Z Supplement Reference.

The evidence for each separate supplement is still freely available here.