Eat Chocolate, Build Memory
November 28, 2014
Doctors just announced, at the Scientific Sessions 2014 in Chicago, results of a study linking high consumption of trans fats with poorer memory on word recall tests.
Leader of the experiment, Beatrice Golomb, stated “trans fats were most strongly linked to worse memory in young and middle-aged men during their working and career-building years.”
Now, aside from education and depression, doctors only took two food variables into consideration during this experiment – trans fats, and chocolate.
Yes, chocolate!
Head of the study, Beatrice Golomb, says chocolate intake seems to have a link to memory as well, but in a positive way. Her research has shown her this link - she has found that people who eat a lot of chocolate tend to perform better on memory tests.
Golomb believes it is the antioxidants present in chocolate which improve the function of cells lining our blood vessels, leading to better blood flow and improved cognition. And hers is not the only theory out there on this topic!
The New England Journal of Medicine published a unique study that found “A surprisingly powerful correlation between chocolate intake per capita and the number of Nobel laureates in various countries.”
Golomb was intrigued by this study, and sought to dig further into it by gathering the chocolate habits of 23 past Nobel laureates in various fields. The results were published last year in the journal Nature.
Her findings were that 10 of 23 laureates (43%) reported eating chocolate more than twice a week. Only 25% of 237 well-educated, non-laureates gave the same answer.
Regular intake of flavonoids may play a part in this as well, according to Franz Messerli, professor of medicine at Columbia University who assisted with the study. Indeed, our beloved cocoa contains these memory building flavonoids.
The New York Times published a story in October on the study of flavonoids in cocoa. In the study, healthy adults, ages 50-69, drank a mixture high in cocoa flavanols for three months. Those who drank this mixture performed notably better on memory tests than those who drank a low-flavanol mixture.
The senior author for the study, Dr. Scott A. Small, stated that the participants’ performance on the memory test was actually as good as people two to three decades younger.
That’s what’s in chocolate news today, so for your memory’s sake, eat that chocolate cookie.
Original story from The Atlantic.
Photo: "Thinking About It" by Garry Knight is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 / cropped from original
- Super-Dad Writes To Cadbury About Chocolate - October 30, 2015
- Dark Chocolate Covered Frightened Pretzels Recipe - October 28, 2015
- Will It Chocolate? Funny Video Friday! - October 23, 2015