Improve your memory, eat chocolate?

In case you needed another excuse to eat (lots) of chocolate, new research suggests that chocolate could actually be good for memory. Isn’t this just fantastic news?

An antioxidant in chocolate appears to improve some memory skills that people lose with age. A small study was conducted with healthy people aged 50 to 69 who drank a mixture of cocoa flavanols (high in antioxidants) for 3 months. These individuals performed better on a memory test than those who drank a low-flavanol mixture. For instance, there were improvements on memory tasks such as recalling where you parked the car or the face of someone you just met. In fact, the high-flavanol drinkers performed like people 2 or 3 decades younger on memory tasks! This was 25 per cent better than the low-flavanol subjects. Researchers were impressed with how impactful chocolate was in such a short time period, especially as it related to age-related memory change.

Though there is always a catch when it comes to chocolate, though it is bittersweet – the research suggests that further investigation should be conducted. Who is going to complain about doctor prescribed chocolate?

Researchers say you’d have to eat a large amount of chocolate (about 7 averaged-sized chocolate bars) to consume the high-flavanol group’s daily dose, and we aren’t going to argue with science…so eat up!

What’s your favourite chocolate? How often do you eat it? Have you seen any benefits? Tell us below.