Here’s more good news for people who like dark chocolate.
A new study in the journal Depression and Anxiety found that people who ate any amount of dark chocolate were 70% less likely to report clinically relevant depressive symptoms than abstainers.
Of course, you’ll probably say, “Well, could income, education, smoking, weight, height” etc influence that?
In other words, are dark chocolate eaters just living healthier lives (not smoking, exercising etc) and less prone to depression? Is that what’s behind the results?
No, the researchers controlled for weight, height, marital status, education, ethnicity, income, education, smoking, and numerous health conditions.
And the link remained.
So the evidence seems to be clear — dark chocolate consumption is linked to fewer depressive symptoms.
However, it’s not clear if this is just correlation or causation. As the researchers note, it could be that depressed people are less likely to want to eat chocolate, but of course, that’s just a theory.
It’s important to note, also, that the chocolate had to be dark. There wasn’t a link between milk chocolate consumption (3 Musketeers stuff) and depression.
Researchers aren’t sure why, but there some good theories.
First, dark chocolate has loads of flavonoids, which are linked to positive mental outcomes.
Second. Well, there’s a lot more than second, and here you are — a boatload of research on dark chocolate’s mood-boosting benefits.
Chocolate contains a number of psychoactive ingredients, including two analogs of anandamine (which produce effects similar to the cannabinoid responsible for euphoria from cannabis) and several endogenous biogenic amines (Bruinsma & Taren, 1999; Hurst et al., 1982; Parker et al., 2006). Notably, the latter include phenylethylamine, a neuromodulator believed to be important for mood regulation and implicated in the pathogenesis of depression (Bruinsma & Taren, 1999; Sabelli & Javaid, 1995). Chocolate consumption, as a pleasurable experience, may interact with several neurotransmitter systems implicated in reward pathways and mood regulation (e.g. dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins) (Bruinsma & Taren, 1999; Parker et al., 2006). Experimental evidence suggests that improvements in mood after chocolate consumption is likely attributable to the chocolate’s palatability (Macht & Dettmer, 2006; Macht & Mueller, 2007).
One more thing — in the study, researchers found that the more dark chocolate you ate, the fewer depressive symptoms. So, some is good, but more is better.
