If you’re worried about losing your memory, eat chocolate. According to a new study by Dr. Kenneth S. Kosik cited in a New York Times article, chocolate could stop memory loss. Chocolate contains the antioxidant epicatechin that preserves memory lost with age, said Kosik, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara who has been studying the effects of chocolate on memory.
Epicatechin and cocoa flavanols are linked with improved blood circulation and heart health, but its effects on memory are the most intriguing, according to Kosik. Those who consumed the antioxidant and cocoa flavanols at high dosages performed 25 percent better than those who consumed low dosages of flavanols in memory tests. Though the research will have to undergo more tests and replication, the results give the impression that people can eat a lot of chocolate and improve their memory.
BYU-Hawaii student Carson Booher, a freshman from Arizona studying business, doesn’t like chocolate. Booher said, “I don’t like plain chocolate and I especially don’t like dark chocolate.” Booher said he has a “pretty bad memory so maybe [the study is] true.” The New York Times article warned, however, that candy bars are not a good source for these memory-improving antioxidant and cocoa flavonols. According to Dr. Hagen Schroeter, director of Fundamental Health and Nutrition Research for Mars, Inc., “Candy bars don’t even have a lot of chocolate in them.
Most chocolate uses a process called dutching and alkalization. That’s like poison for flavanol.” This is good news for Jessica Smith, a freshman from California majoring in pre-med biology, who likes dark chocolate better than candy bars. “I’ve heard in the past that dark chocolate has other health benefits and antioxidants and I’ve always thought dark chocolate was better anyways,” she said. “Next time I eat dark chocolate, I will think about the memory benefits and it will be my justification for eating more chocolate from now on.”However, scientists said in their study that to consume a high dosage of cocoa flavanols to preserve memory, you would need to eat “at least 300 grams of dark chocolate a day,” which is about seven average-sized candy bars. You could also eat “100 grams of baking chocolate or unsweetened cocoa powder”.
According to the New York Times article, researchers saw an improvement in the memory skills used to remember the location of your parked car or recognizing someone you just met. This type of memory is found in the brain’s hippocampal area called the dentate gyrus. There was, however, no improvement in the entorhinal cotex, another hippocampal region in the brain.
This area of the brain is “impaired early in Alzheimer’s disease.” According to the article, this “age-related decline is different and suggests that flavanols might not help Alzheimer’s.” It could just “delay normal memory loss.”Linda Ceballos, a junior from Mexico majoring in IDS, said understanding the study makes eating chocolate “way better.” Ceballos said she likes milk chocolate better but “dark chocolate is healthy because of the cocoa so it’s natural.”