Move Over, Fish! Chocolate Is the New Brain Food

A paper given at the British Psychological Society Annual meeting has caused a small stir. Northumbria University researchers have shown that a cup of hot chocolate is able to improve performance on math tests.

Thirty students drank cocoa drinks on different days, containing 520 mg cocoa flavonols, 993 mg cocoa flavonols, or a ‘control’ beverage. Mental tasks were then administered – for instance, counting backwards in threes from a starting point between 800 and 999.

On the days the students drank either cocoa drink they did significantly better than when they had the control drink. They also said they felt less mentally tired during the tests. The 520 mg dose was more effective than the 993 mg flavonols. (This is equivalent to about 5 chocolate bars!) Further studies will be done with lower ‘dose levels’.

Wine contains falvonoid substances. However, the flavonoids in dark chocolate more than 70% in cocoa) are different than those found in red wine (anthocyanins and tannins), so one cannot expect similar results from a glass or two of wine. It’s a pity that chocolate has so many calories – but then, it’s still more tasty than a flavonoid pill.