Sinful but good for the brain: Chocolates rich in cocoa flavanols boost cognition in healthy adults

If you feel "chocolate-guilt" whenever you reach out for a bar of the sweet treat, then now, you have all the reason to shake off that guilty feeling. Research showed that cocoa flavonols found in chocolates can give the brain of healthy adults a big boost.

A study titled "Dietary flavanols improve cerebral cortical oxygenation and cognition in healthy adults" published in the journal Scientific Reports, showed that brains of healthy adults who consumed cocoa flavonols beforehand were able to recover faster from a mild vascular challenge or a cognitive impairment and also showed better performance on complex tests.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign studied 18 participants and noted that 14 exhibited improvements after they ingested flavonols. There was already previous research, which showed that eating flavonol-rich foods could benefit vascular function. However, Catarina Rendeiro, lead researcher, noted that their research is the first that was able to find a positive effect of flavanols in the cognitive performance of young adults.

Participants in the double-blind study were adult non-smokers and had no heart, brain, respiratory or vascular disease. The team tested the participants before they were given cocoa flavanols. Two separate trials were conducted. In one of the trials, participants received flavanol-rich cocoa. In another, they consumed processed cocoa, but this time around, the level of flavanols was low.

The researchers observed that two hours after the participants consumed cocoa, they breathed air with 5% carbon dioxide. This is considered 100 times more than the normal concentration in the air. The process shows that the body brings more oxygen to the brain and it was also able to eliminate more carbon dioxide.

When the participants were given cognitive tests after ingesting cocoa flavanols, the researchers found that they performed better in the tests. Their rate of solving problems increased by 11 percent. As for easier tasks, there was no significant improvement whether participants had low or high flavanol intake.

Dark Chocolate and Flavanols

The researchers noted however, that there is a small group of people who did not exhibit improvement even after flavanol intake. Out of the 18, four participants showed no significant difference in terms of brain oxygenation or in their test performance.