Do The Math, Thanks to Dark Chocolate
by THP
Filed under Diet & Energy
By Courtney Rubin
Just in case you need another excuse to eat chocolate: It makes doing math easier.
A study at the UK’s Northumbria University found that people given a large amount of flavanols – found in dark chocolate – did mental math more quickly and were less likely to feel tired or mentally drained.
In the study, volunteers first sipped chocolate drinks containing flavanols (part of a group of chemicals called polyphenols, which work by increasing blood to the brain) or a control drink. Then they were given mentally-demanding tasks, such as counting backwards in groups of three from a random number between 800 and 999 generated by a computer. They performed tasks like this for an hour.
The participants who drank the beverages containing either 520 mg or 993 mg of flavanols got a brainpower boost from the chocolate. (The group who drank 993 mg of flavanols didn’t perform significantly better than the 520 mg group, but both groups performed much better than those who imbibed no flavanols at all.)
“The drink rich in cocoa flavanols significantly improved aspects of cognitive performance and levels of fatigue during this mentally-demanding task,” researcher Crystal Haskell of Northumbria’s Brain, Performance and Nutrition Research Centre told the British Psychological Society at its annual meeting.
Dark chocolate has higher quantities of flavanols than plain or milk chocolate. Some bars have as much as 100 mg of the good stuff – not that the scientists are suggesting you eat five!
“We are also going to look at the effect of lower doses of flavanol on the brain,” Emma Wightman, one of the lead researchers, told the UK’s The Telegraph.
The good news: The scientists suggest the chocolate effect could help with any tough (mental) task – not just math.
Northumbria professor David Kennedy, who helped run the study, told the Telegraph: “For things that are difficult to do, mentally demanding things that maybe crop up in your work it could help.”
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