Can drinking hot chocolate actually help
maintain brain function?
Drinking two cups of hot
chocolate a day may help older people keep their brains healthy and their
thinking skills sharp, according to a study published in the August 7, 2013,
online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of
Neurology.
The study involved 60
people with an average age of 73 who did not have dementia. The participants
drank two cups of hot cocoa per day for 30 days and did not consume any other
chocolate during the study. They were given tests of memory and thinking
skills. They also had ultrasounds tests to measure the amount of blood flow to
the brain during the tests.
"We're learning more about blood flow in the brain and its effect on thinking skills," said study author Farzaneh A. Sorond, MD, PhD, of Harvard Medical School in Boston and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "As different areas of the brain need more energy to complete their tasks, they also need greater blood flow. This relationship, called neurovascular coupling, may play an important role in diseases such as Alzheimer's."
Of the 60 participants,
18 had impaired blood flow at the start of the study. Those people had an
8.3-percent improvement in the blood flow to the working areas of the brain by
the end of the study, while there was no improvement for those who started out
with regular blood flow.
The people with impaired
blood flow also improved their times on a test of working memory, with scores
dropping from 167 seconds at the beginning of the study to 116 seconds at the
end. There was no change in times for people with regular blood flow.
Read more at EurekAlert.