It’s a common assumption that chocolate is a positive mood enhancer but a new US research raises the question: Does chocolate stimulate happy feelings or depression? A study published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine attempted to answer that question.
Researchers from the Davis and San Diego campuses of the University of California found people who screened positive for depression ate significantly more chocolate than those who didn’t. But researchers were still unable to determine whether the chocolate was causing the depression or if it was simply used by depressed people as a “coping mechanism”, the UK’s The Times reported.
The researchers studied 931 people who were not using antidepressant medications to examine the relationship between chocolate and mood. Those who were found likely to be suffering from depression ate an average of 8.4 servings of chocolate per month, compared with 5.4 servings among those who didn’t show signs of depression. Those who were found to have the symptoms of major depression ate even more chocolate at 11.8 servings per month.
“Our study confirms long-held suspicions that eating chocolate is something that people do when they are feeling down,” researcher Dr Beatrice Golomb said.
“Because it was a cross-sectional study, meaning a slice in time, it did not tell us whether the chocolate decreased or intensified the depression.”
The increase of chocolate consumption in depressed people led the researchers to three possible conclusions.
“First, depression could stimulate chocolate cravings as ‘self-treatment’ if chocolate confers mood benefits, as has been suggested in recent studies of rats,” the researchers wrote.
“Second, depression may stimulate chocolate cravings for unrelated reasons, without a treatment benefit of chocolate. Third, the possibility that chocolate could causally contribute to depressed mood, driving the association, cannot be excluded,” they wrote.
“Future studies are required to elucidate the foundation of the association and to determine whether chocolate has a role in depression, as cause or cure.”
The researchers said there was no correlation between general increases in fat, carbohydrate or energy intake with mood symptoms but there was a strong association with chocolate specifically.
It has long been assumed that because chocolate tastes good, it stimulates endorphin production (which gives a feeling of pleasure). Chocolate also contains serotonin (which acts as an antidepressant) and theobromine, caffeine and other substances which are stimulants, suggesting that chocolate stimulates positive feelings of wellbeing. But there have been few scientific studies into this theory.
One thing’s for sure, if you want a chocolate hit with powerful mineral and antioxidant health benefits go for dark chocolate made from raw and unprocessed organic cocoa, not it’s highly processed, additive-laden cousin, milk chocolate.
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