Good Lifestyle

And if we told you that sipping at homehot chocolate Can you give you a leg to complete some cognitive tasks? According to new research, cocoa drinking can help you learn new concepts or solve problems faster.

Anew study Published in the newspaperScientific reportsThe researchers at the University of Birmingham have explored the effects of flavanoles present in cocoa on cerebral function in young adults in good health. (In touch:The 7 healthiest foods to eat right now.)

What did everything do?

The study examined 18 healthy men aged 18 to 40 years. Each of the persons has undergone a standard procedure, questioning the blood circulation of the brain, which implied breathable 5% carbon dioxide (CO2). For the context, it's about 100 times the normal CO2 concentration in the air. The process caused hypercapnia, or the presence of too much carbon dioxide in the blood.

Each subject performed the CO2 test before and after drinking cocoa twice. On one of these occasions, cocoa has been enriched with flavanoles. At the same time, participants were invited to complete several cognitive tests, which progressed in complexity.

Main study author Dr. Catarina Rendiro of the Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation School of the University of Birmingham, saidEat this, not that!that the enriched drink of Flavanols was made with a natural cocoa powder calledActicoa de Barry Callebaut. Participants consumed about 8.5 grams of powder in the 300 ml of water.

So, what did the researchers found?

After examining the cognitive tests, researchers have discovered that those who have drank the enriched cocoa of flavanole had the highest levels of blood oxygenation in response to hypercapnia up to three times higher than participants who drank. of the transformed and alkalized drink. As a result, these participants also completed their cognitive tasks of upper complexity of 11% faster.

"Effective oxygenation of the brain is the key to cognition," said Renduiro. "The fact that flavanols can be effective in improving cerebral oxygenation and cognitive function even in a healthy brain is a remarkable finding, and this means that we can potentially benefit from rich flavanol regimes."

Flavanols are in a variety of foods, including apples, berries, grapes and green tea. However, Rendiro notes that the consumption of chocolate squares - even from dark chocolate - probably will probably not give the same dose of flavanols as cocoa powder.

"Unfortunately, it's hard to know what is the contents of flavanols in chocolate products because they are not [disclosed] in the labels," she says. "As a general rule, scientific articles that measured the contents of flavanols in commercially available chocolates appear to find any relationship between the contents of cocoa solids and flavanol levels. This is mainly because the treatment of cocoa for Make chocolate can substantially damage flavanols. "

Up tochocolate bar The producers create a product loaded in flavanols in one or two square servers, consider creating your own chocolate milk or a hot chocolate with a cocoa powder enriched in Flavanol. You can simply find yourself in your work day a little faster than normal.

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