Media coverage of research published in Frontiers.

Drinking water is good for you. But did you know it can boost cognitive performance?

Caroline Edmonds and colleagues from the University of East London and the University of Westminster report that reaction times were up to 14% shorter after drinking water.

As part of a study, they tested 34 adults, who had not eaten or drunk anything overnight, for memory, attention, learning, and reaction time. Subjects were tested on two mornings: once after they had consumed a cereal bar and water, and once after eaten a cereal bar only.

Reaction times were up to 14% shorter after drinking water, especially for those who felt thirsty. Unexpectedly, performance on a complex-rule-learning task became slightly worse after drinking.

Future research will have to determine why drinking water can be beneficial for some cognitive tasks, but not for others, say the authors.

The results are published in a paper titled Subjective thirst moderates changes in speed of responding associated with water consumption in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

The research was covered by CTV, The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Yahoo, **Medical Daily**and the Huffington Post.

Read the open-access paper here.