14 DAY TRIAL // The fact that chocolate helps stimulate the brain and the mood is widely known; however, until now, researchers had no idea that the sweet stuff can also influence the way we do math. According to a new study, which is widely circulated in the British media, flavanols, compounds that can be found in chocolate, have the potential to make it easier for people to work with numbers, LiveScience reports. As opposed to a number of people in a control group, those who were given the substance performed better in tests involving counting backwards in groups of three from numbers between 800 and 999.
The experts believe that flavanols have the potential to increase blood flow to the brain, and, although in the experiments participants were only given the substance, without the actual chocolate, the investigators believe that the results can easily be translated into people’s wish to eat large amounts of the sweet. Also, the scientists have learned that people should no try to replicate the results of their tests, because the dose they administered the subjects was 500 mg of the substance, an amount that can be subtracted from more than five bars of chocolate.
“For things that are difficult to do, mentally demanding things that maybe crop up in your work it could help,” explained David Kennedy, researcher at Northumbria University, as quoted by The Telegraph newspaper. Kennedy, who was also the leader of the new investigation, added that flavanols did little to help people when they were asked to count backwards in groups of seven numbers. He said that the brain's ability to subtract numbers very fast diminishes with the interval that exists between the numbers, as in for example subtracting 7 from 847, and then 7 from 840 and so on.
The researchers also emphasize the fact that the darker the chocolate, the more health benefits it has on the body, but only when consumed in moderate quantities. That is to say, the less milk and sugar it has, the bitter it gets. Some people have developed a real passion for dark chocolate, and find sweet one less delicious. Studies show that it is them who get the most health benefits from eating moderate amounts of the sweet stuff once a day or every two days.