Dark Chocolate can Improve our Memory?

Guess what? Chocolate is actually good for you! Some of us may have already heard this awesome news, because chocolate is actually considered to be a super food. However, this does not include milk chocolate – sorry sweet milk fans, but we are talking about bitter dark chocolate. Even though not everyone is a fan of dark chocolate, it is packed with nutritiously beneficial goodness. Actually, the darker the chocolate, the healthier. It is usually recommended to eat around 85% dark chocolate. And why is that? Well, cocoa contains flavanols which have high antioxidant properties. So the darker the chocolate, the more flavanols it contains.

Dark chocolate is recommended for those on an anti-inflammatory diet because of its health benefits such as lowering blood pressure and improving blood circulation. Other interesting health benefits are improved mood, energy, and mental focus. So it doesn’t only help us physically but also emotionally and mentally. A recent study has revealed that it also helps to improve or memory!

“In a small study in the journal Nature Neuroscience, healthy people, ages 50 to 69, who drank a mixture high in antioxidants called cocoa flavanols for three months performed better on a memory test than people who drank a low-flavanol mixture.

Besides improvements on the memory test — a pattern recognition test involving the kind of skill used in remembering where you parked the car or recalling the face of someone you just met — researchers found increased function in an area of the brain’s hippocampus called the dentate gyrus, which has been linked to this type of memory.”

However, milk chocolate, candy bars, and most cocoa powders (even unsweetened) go through a process called dutching and alkalization. This loses most of the important flavanols. This is why it is also suggested to stick with cacao. The difference between “cacao” and “cocoa” is that cacao is the raw form and cocoa is the form after being processed (alkalized).

So stick with dark cacao chocolate and improve your memory and get healthy!

Resources:

Improve a memory, consider chocolate. (2014, October 26). The New York Times. Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/27/us/a-bite-to-remember-chocolate-is-shown-to-aid-memory.html

Mark Meldon, DO/DABPN( Psychiatrist, CEO/President )

Dr. Melden earned his Doctorate in Osteopathic Medicine at Philadelphia College Osteopathic Medicine and went to USC Presbyterian Hospital for his residency in Family Medicine. He then completed his Psychiatric residency at the University of California, Irvine and went to UCSD Geropsychiatry pursuing a fellowship. Dr. Melden has over 14 years of experience as a clinician specializing in treating child and adolescent, adult and geriatric clients. He has devoted his life to psychiatry in a variety of different treatment settings including in- patient and out-patient environments. He specializes in the psychiatric evaluation, complementary therapy approaches, and medical management of individuals suffering from mental illness. Currently, he maintains a private practice with Crownview Medical Group in Coronado and Carlsbad, California where he is CEO/President.