Jonathan Wilhoite Blog: Chocolate Can Make You Smarter and Healthier

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Chocolate Can Make You Smarter and Healthier

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Now you have more than enough reason to tell everyone that eating chocolate could improve your brain function to make you smarter and healthier.

A recent study published by the journal Appetite indicated that researchers were able to associate chocolate consumption with cognitive brain function.

The landmark findings that covered 968 participants between 23 to 98 years old, revealed that those who frequently consume chocolate had better performance on visual-spatial memory and organization, abstract reasoning, scanning and tracking, working memory and mini-mental state examination

This may be due to high concentrations of cocoa flavanols and essential chemical compounds in chocolate that protects the brain from oxidative stress and age-related cognitive decline .

Researchers also discovered that these essential flavanols positively affects the brain and are more abundant in dark chocolate compared to white chocolate or milk. These flavanols can also be found in large concentrations in red fruits like berries and grapes.

In another study back in 2014, researchers discovered that lavado – a cocoa extract – helped prevent damage to the brain’s nerve pathways for patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

Aside from chocolates making you smarter, more good news from science also claims that biologically active phenolic compounds found in chocolate positively affects oxidative stress, atherosclerosis and blood pressure regulation.

Health benefits derived from these compounds include reduced risk of cardiovascular problems and lowers cholesterol levels, although further studies are still underway to show concrete evidence of these effects with increased commercial chocolate consumption.

In another separate study, scientists from Canada conducted a study with 44,489 participants and discovered that 22 percent of them were less likely to experience a stroke attack.

However, this does not mean that test subjects were fed with dozens of chocolate bars, instead, were provided with drinks infused with fortified yet measured amounts of cocoa flavanols daily for two months.

Researchers cautioned that in spite of the benefits of chocolates, the public also needs to be aware about the increase in consumption of chocolate candy bars may be subject to risks of increased sugar intake and the health impacts that goes along with it.

Commercial chocolate bars are often formulated with glucose and sucrose substances that make it more palatable and tasty and contain only an average of 53.49mg of cocoa flavanols, compared to the drinks given to test subjects of 993mgs per day.

This means that eating chocolate could improve your brain function and lets you add more years to your life.

An average American consumes about 4.5 kilograms of chocolates every year.

Image Credit: Science Says Eating Chocolate Could Improve Your Brain Function – MBG

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