BBC SCIENCE FOCUS MAGAZINE COLLECTION 29ILLUSTRATION: MAGIC TORCH
MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD
A study in the Journal of
Psychopharmacology found people who
had a 42g of dark chocolate drink a day felt
more content than people who did not.
Dietitian Junee Sangani explains: “The
improvement in mood that people can get
from eating chocolate comes from the
release of serotonin and endorphins – the
feel-good chemicals – in the brain.”BOOSTS BRAIN POWER
In a study reported in the Journal of
Nutrition, researchers examined the
relationship between brain performance
and chocolate consumption of 2,031
Norwegian people aged between 70 and- They took a batter y of brain-power
tests and those who had chocolate had
significantly better cognitive performance
than those who did not.
KEEPS YOU SLIM
People who eat chocolate regularly tend to
be thinner, according to a study of more
than 1,000 people. The researchers, who
published their results in the Archives of
Internal Medicine, found people who ate
chocolate a few times a week were, on
average, slimmer than those who only ate
it occasionally – even after the other foods
in their diet were taken into account.567
MAKES YOU A GENIUS (maybe)
Researchers found a link between the
amount of chocolate eaten per person and
the number of Nobel prize winners in a
country’s population. Switzerland had the
highest levels of chocolate consumption
and the most Nobel laureates. Everyone in
the UK would have to munch through about
2kg of chocolate per year to increase the
number of Nobel laureates.PROTECTS YOUR SKIN
Researchers have found that some
compounds in cocoa can actually help
protec t your skin from the Sun. A study
found that people who ate 20g of dark
chocolate per day over 12 weeks could
spend double the amount of time in front
of a UV lamp before their skin reddened
compared with those who had eaten
normal chocolate.RENOVATES BLOOD VESSELS
A study published by the Federation of
American Societies for Experimental
Biology found that men who had eaten 70g
of dark chocolate a day had healthier blood
vessels as a result. The dark chocolate
appeared to help make arteries more
flexible and reduce the stickiness of white
blood cells, two factors that would help
reduce the risk of them getting clog ged up.819 0