The Guilty Pleasure The Smartest People Always Have, According To Research
Smart people choose chocolate.
Polina Tankilevitch | Canva Everyone loves chocolate, and even though we try to cut way back on sugar, there are times we need it. It makes us feel better when we're feeling low. We love its deliciously rich taste, its texture, and how it makes everything better.
Not only that, but chocolate can be good for us. It has plenty of benefits including lowering blood pressure, preventing liver damage, boosting good cholesterol, and keeping your heart healthy.
We always suspected that chocolate was good for us, and now there's proof it can make us smarter! That's right, eating chocolate can boost our brain functions and could make us geniuses. Okay, maybe not literally, but it can help our brains function better.
Here's the guilty pleasure the smartest people always have, according to research
1. Chocolate can improve your focus, memory, and learning ability
A study published in the journal Appetite found that eating chocolate on the regular helps improve brain function. "Our study demonstrated positive associations between habitual chocolate consumption and cognitive performance," said the researchers of the study.
It's not entirely surprising that chocolate is good for the brain, since chocolate (the main byproduct of the cacao plant) has been associated with improvements in a range of health complaints dating from ancient times.
2. Chocolate is good for your body
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Nutrients Journal explored the earliest evidence for the medical uses of cacao was found in Mesoamerican civilizations; iconographic works and fragments, writings, and remnants in the pottery showed how cacao was prepared in beverage form, at least as early as 600 B.C.
Medicinally, chocolate has been used to reduce fever, treat diarrhea, help with PMS, increase breast-milk production, encourage sleep, and even clean people's teeth, as shown by an article in The Lancet. Chocolate has provided us a leap forward in our understanding of the aging process and how age affects our brains.
3. Chocolate could protect against cognitive decline
Aging is usually accompanied by declined brain function, including memory and processing speed. However, the study found that regular intake of cocoa flavanols has a beneficial effect on cognitive function, and possibly protects against normal age-related cognitive decline.
In other words, eating chocolate can help keep you sharp!
For the study, researchers used data collected from a Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study, also known as MSLS, in which 968 people between the ages of 23 and 98 were measured for dietary intake and cardiovascular risk factors, as well as cognitive function. The research from the study showed that eating chocolate regularly was significantly associated with cognitive function regardless of their other dietary habits.
The more frequent the chocolate consumption, the more significant the performance on cognitive tests, including visual-spatial memory and organization, working memory, scanning and tracking, abstract reasoning, and the mini-mental state examination.
"Chocolate is also good for the brain," psychotherapist Cindy Perlin pointed out, "two cups of hot chocolate a day helped improve blood flow to essential parts of the brain. This indicates that chocolate could help in fighting diseases of progressive cognitive decline, such as Alzheimer’s."
It turns out chocolate is just as good for your brain as it is for your broken heart, so now when you crave chocolate, remind yourself that you're not overindulging — you're simply improving your cognitive functions.
Christine Schoenwald is a writer and frequent contributor to YourTango. She's had articles featured in The Los Angeles Times, Salon, Bustle, Medium, Huffington Post, Business Insider, and Woman's Day, among many others.