Title : Does Eating Chocolate Improve Your Brain Function?
link : Does Eating Chocolate Improve Your Brain Function?
Does Eating Chocolate Improve Your Brain Function?
"Post-body-6687690313498456664"> Everyone loves a study that becomes one of our favorite vices in a benefit for health. This week, news headlines tells us "eating chocolate improves brain function" and that "could help protect against related impairment normal age".
The study, published this month in the peer-reviewed journal, Appetite , it was found that memory and abstract thinking improved in those who reported greater consumption of chocolate. These effects appeared not be influenced by factors such as the measurements of the age, weight and general health. Before reaching a Mars bar or Dairy Milk, let's take a step back. This is a correlational study. That means showing an association between people who reported regular consumption of chocolate and better scores on tests of brain function. Does not show that consumption of chocolate directly improves brain function. Other factors are also at play. People who ate the most chocolate also had better food and drank less alcohol. And both groups were based on his memory to report their levels of chocolate consumption. Sorry folks, but you will not be able to rely on this study to justify their chocolate binge. 15:00 
CC BY-ND How the study was conducted? The 968 participants were of the Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study, which has followed the same group of New Yorkers for more than 35 years. Participants questionnaires and physical examinations are committed at various intervals so that researchers can determine changes associated with aging, development of heart disease and cognitive performance also. In 2006, participants reported how often during the week ate a variety of foods, including chocolate, meat, eggs, bread, rice, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, chocolate, nuts and beverages such as tea, coffee, water, fruit juice and alcohol. The chocolate does not differ depending on whether it was black, milk or white chocolate. 
Participants reported their food intake retrospectively through a questionnaire. racorn / Shutterstock The researchers compared those who never or rarely ate the chocolate (337 people) and those who ate chocolate at least once a week (631 people). Participants were given several tests of brain function - including remembering where things (spatial memory), abstract reasoning, working memory and attention were. Relations between chocolate consumption and performance on cognitive tasks were analyzed below. Results of people with dementia were excluded because it is a severe cognitive impairment, as they were people who had suffered a stroke, as this could skew the results. what were the results? Participants who reported that they ate more chocolate than once a week had a better performance in most cognitive tests, including their score of "memory and visual-spatial organization" . There was no relationship with working memory. More women chocolate eaters were self-reported, so this could skew the results. Women often perform better than men in certain tests of cognitive function, particularly in the elderly. The group eating chocolate was less likely to have high blood pressure or diabetes and had lower levels of fasting blood glucose (indicating pre-diabetes) that participants do not eat chocolate. However, chocolate eaters had higher cholesterol, including cholesterol low density lipoprotein (bad), which is associated with poorer cardiovascular health. So what does all this mean? Chocolate is often demonized because of the high content of sugar and fat in chocolate bars and its association with "guilty pleasure". However, cocoa (chocolate or in its raw form) actually contains a large number of compounds which act in the brain. In particular, cocoa contains flavonoids, which are found in fruits such as grapes and apples. Cocoa also contains caffeine and theobromine, which are stimulants found in coffee and tea. It is believed that these natural compounds to enhance alertness so can improve brain function. 
Both coffee and chocolate contain caffeine. Images Successo / Shutterstock However, the amounts of these chemicals depend on the concentration of cocoa chocolate - and milk chocolate contains much less these active ingredients as the dark chocolate. The study notes that the type of chocolate consumed was not evaluated, so we do not know if this had an impact on results. is important to remember that this is a correlational study. Therefore, it does not examine whether chocolate consumption directly improves brain function. To prove this, an experiment would ask people to eat a diet rich in chocolate or without chocolate diet for a reasonable amount of time, and then carry out tests of brain function. This would be a way to determine whether chocolate can improve cognitive performance. What need to consider? Participants who ate chocolate also reported eating more servings of vegetables, meat and dairy products, and food in general and drink less alcohol. This indicates that may have had better food in general, regardless of their reports to eat more chocolate. Alcohol consumption is known to decrease brain function, which could have influenced the group of non-eating chocolate. The authors followed this observation by examining alcohol intake separately and found no association between alcohol consumption and brain function tests. This suggests that alcohol did not have an impact on brain functions measured. However, it could indicate differences in overall health and wellness. More people in the group of non-eating chocolate had diabetes, so that may have been avoiding chocolate because of the high sugar content. Diabetes has been linked with cognitive impairments , especially memory performance, so this could affect the results. 
light, dark or square blocks single whole: not all chocolates are the same. Pauline Mak / Shutterstock CC BY Another issue is that the participants were retrospectively self-reporting food intake in response to a questionnaire. People can easily erroneously declare or underestimate their consumption. (In fact, the lowest scores on tests of brain function in people who ate less chocolate may reflect a group that was less able to accurately report their food intake. Ask someone to remember their food for the week is a memory test in itself!) portion sizes not only the frequency of food consumed during days are well informed. So the research does not distinguish between if you eat a family-sized bar of chocolate, or just a single square. This type of cross-sectional study is great to show the relationship between diet and health in a snapshot in time. But the correlation does not equal causation. To really get to the bottom of this question, we need carefully designed experimental studies to examine the association between chocolate and cognitive health, and the mechanisms linking them. - Amy Reichelt Peer Review This review article is a fair interpretation of the results. The important point is that although the participants were in a longitudinal study that recruited people in waves between 1975 and 2000, the measurement of food intake and evaluation of cognitive function was only a subgroup that underwent testing during the sixth wave of follow-up between 2001 and 2006. therefore the main analysis could only look at cross associations. Participants were divided into three groups based on the regular consumption of chocolate ever, once a week, or more than once a week. But it is unclear whether the regular intake was in the last year, or just last week, which could affect the results. The review clearly highlights some other possible explanations for the findings, including those who ate chocolate also reported some healthier eating patterns. It is very likely that people with diabetes have advised eating less chocolate. The observation of a lower proportion of chocolate consumers who have high blood pressure consistent with a systematic review showing that regular consumption of chocolate may have a small effect of decreased blood pressure. However, much as we would all like the results of cross-sectional analysis to be true, the 2013 systematic review found that in trials lasting five days to six weeks, chocolate not improve cognitive function. I agree with the conclusion that better quality trials are needed, including studies of mechanical ,. - Clare Collins (source)
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