Finally, there’s a study telling you that something you enjoy is also good for you: chocolate.
People have known for a long time that chocolate can have cardiovascular benefits, but less is known about its effects on cognitive function.
So University of Maine professor Merrill Elias, University of South Australia nutritionist and psychologist Georgina Crichton and cardiovascular researcher Ala’a Alkerwi of the Luxembourg Institute of Health decided to study just that. In the journal Appetite, they recently described how they found a positive association between chocolate intake and cognitive performance.
After tracking about 1,000 people over 35 years, the researchers did not find a rise in intelligence. But “people who ate chocolate on a regular basis performed better on cognitive functions than people who did not,” Elias said.
Chocolate also has been shown — perhaps surprisingly, considering how much fat it can contain — to help out in the exercise department. In another study published last December in The Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, researchers found dark chocolate gave a small endurance bump to athletes. That’s probably because it contains a substance called epicatechin.
That nutrient can set off a chain reaction, starting by getting cells lining blood vessels to release extra nitric oxide. As The New York Times wrote, “Nitric oxide slightly increases vasodilation, or a widening of the veins and arteries, improving blood flow and cardiac function. It also gooses muscle cells to take in more blood sugar, providing them with more energy, and it enhances the passage of oxygen into cells.”
Better brain and body function? It just gets better and better.
We’ll give you another research paper for the road. A small study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience found that an antioxidant in chocolate may improve memory loss. Healthy people, ages 50 to 69, drank a mixture high in cocoa flavanols for three months and then took a memory test. They performed better — about 25 percent better, in fact — than people who drank a low-flavanol mixture.
There is a downside. The equivalent of the high-flavanol mixture is seven average-sized dark chocolate bars — carrying a significant number of calories. And many chocolates are created with processes that rid them of flavanols or add fat. (A chocolate martini, for instance, with chocolate liqueur, creme de cacao, vodka and half-and-half, probably isn’t the healthiest chocolate concoction you can consume — but we won’t judge.)
Like most things, moderation is in order, and you should be smart about the types of sweets you pick.
Overall, though, if you’re looking for an excuse to indulge yourself, you have a good one. Actually, you have several. Happy snacking.
