A new study reveals that not only does chocolate make you healthier and happier, but it also boosts brain power. It’s true!
The study, recently published by Appetite, shows that people who eat chocolate at least once a week saw their memory and abstract thinking improve.
“We found that people who eat chocolate at least once a week tend to perform better cognitively,” psychologist Merrill Elias, one of the leaders of the study, told The Washington Post. “It’s significant – it touches a number of cognitive domains.”
Mr Elias began studying the cognitive abilities of more than 1,000 people in the state of New York in the 1970s, initially looking at the relationship between people’s blood pressure and brain performance. For decades Mr Elias continued to observe and record his findings without an inkling that his research would lead to any sort of discovery about chocolate. And yet, 40 years later, it seems to have done just that.
To test whether smarter people simply tend to eat more chocolate or if the food does actually improve brain function, the researchers studied 333 participants whose cognitive abilities had been tested an average of 18 years before they were quizzed about what they eat. They found cognitive ability does not predict whether you are a chocolate eater or not.
“Our study definitely indicates that the direction is not that cognitive ability affects chocolate consumption, but that chocolate consumption affects cognitive ability,” Mr Elias said.
Why this is the case is still uncertain, although previous studies have suggested that foods containing nutrients called flavonols, such as chocolate, can improve your brain power.
Time for a Kit Kat?
