They found that this had a positive effect on the hippocampus, the part of the brain that is responsible for memory function.
While this sounds like great news for chocoholics, there are some problems with the study and the findings. In this article, Gary L. Wenk specifically questions the inconsistency of these results with previous studies:
- The study did not find exercise to be beneficial
- Flavanols found in cocoa have been researched before and health benefits have never been proven
The other big red flag is simply that one would have to eat VAST amounts of chocolate in order to benefit from these flavanols. What’s the problem with that, you might ask?
Eating 20kgs of chocolate per day will very quickly cause a host of other health problems that will cancel out any supposed benefits.
So until they manage to give us more conclusive results, not to mention a way of consuming these flavanols without having to eat a third of your bodyweight in chocolate, there’s sadly not too much to get excited about.