Everyone loves chocolate. Fact. It’s a food that is guaranteed to put a smile on people’s faces. From chocolate cakes to chocolate milkshakes, this amazing ingredient takes on all forms and keeps our sweet tooth at bay. It’s sold everywhere, screaming out to us at the check-out line and stored in our cupboards and biscuit tins, despite that diet you were meant to start. So, how in the world is this amazing ingredient detrimental to our mental health?
This year, reports were releases praising the benefits of chocolate on the heart (in small doses obviously). The results suggested that chocolate can reduce the risk of strokes. Hallelujah!
However conflicting researching is telling us something different. Teams of researchers at two California universities are now studying how chocolate affects our moods and whether it is linked to depression. And their research isn’t looking good for those chocolate lovers.
Ac
cording to the teams, chocolate does not improve moods and those who overindulge in chocolate products may be more prone to depression.
The research looked at 931 individuals who were not using anti-depressants. They went through a depression screening test and then monitored their chocolate consumption and other dietary habits.
Participants who screened for possible depression consumed on average 8.4 ounces of chocolate, while their non-depressed friends ate only 5.4 ounces. Those who scored highest for major depression ate 11.8 ounces.
“Depressed mood was significantly related to higher chocolate consumption,” Dr. Natalie Rose of the University of California, Davis, and the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues wrote in Archives of Internal Medicine.
And because the teams were researching for general dietary intake, they were able to rule out caffeine, fats, and carbohydrates as possible factors in the depression.
The results found that although chocolate may raise your mood initially, it quickly wears off.
But chocolate isn’t all bad, and certainly has some benefits one of them being that it tastes really good! Just eat it in moderation, like everything else, and not much can go wrong.
Story by Tags: Depression
