In ancient Mayan texts cocoa is considered a gift of the gods: Pre-Columbian populations used chocolate as medicine, too. After the discovery of America, chocolate was introduced in Europe, but Christian Europe looked to this new exhilarating drink with extreme suspiciousness and criticism. From this reaction, the necessity derived to appeal to the reasons of health, with which doctors and scie...

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of repeated unreinforced exposure to chocolate cues in persons reporting chocolate craving. Participants in the experimental group (n=40) received 10 consecutive brief exposures to chocolate cues in each of two sessions, separated by 1-3 days. Control participants (n=18) received two exposures at the start and end of each session. Chocolate cr...

Chocolate consumption is anecdotally associated with an increase in happiness, but little experimental work has examined this effect. We combined a food type manipulation (chocolate vs. crackers) with a mindfulness manipulation (mindful consumption vs. non-mindful consumption) and examined the impact on positive mood. Participants (N = 258) were randomly assigned to eat a small portion (75 calo...

BACKGROUND In cirrhosis, hepatic endothelial dysfunction as a result of oxidative stress contributes to the postprandial increase in hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG). OBJECTIVE We aimed at testing the hypothesis that dark chocolate, which holds potent antioxidant properties, might attenuate the postprandial increase in HVPG in patients with cirrhosis. DESIGN In this phase 2, double-b...

Epidemiological studies suggest that chocolate increases the incidence and severity of acne. Here we demonstrate that chocolate consumption primes human blood mononuclear cells from volunteers to release more interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and IL-10 upon stimulation with Propionibacterium acne or Staphylcoccus aureus, the two microorganisms involved in the pathogenesis of acne. In contrast, production ...

In the present study, the effects of substituting sucrose with maltitol and xylitol as bulking agents in compound milk chocolate were examined in relation to their physico-chemical, rheological and sensory characteristics. Standard reference chocolate was made using sucrose. The Casson mathematical model was the best fitting model for predicting rheological properties. Compared with chocolate s...

We investigated the discrimination of what, when, and where in rats (n D 5) using an eightarm radial maze. Rats received daily training consisting of forced-choice visits to four baited arms, one of which was randomly chosen each day to contain chocolate (Phase 1). In Phase 2, all eight arms were available. After a short (30 min) retention interval (RI), the four arms that were not available in...

The objective of this study was to determine the urinary excretion of methylxanthines in horses following ingestion of chocolate over eight days. The study was performed in response to gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) confirmation of the presence of caffeine in a positive urine test in a racehorse. The trainer of the horse alleged that he often administered chocolate-coated peanuts ...

Recent reviews on “The role of diet in acne: facts and controversies”1 and “Nutrition and acne”2 were interesting but may not have adequately challenged the dogma that chocolate does not exacerbate acne vulgaris. Our Medline search, using the key words “acne and chocolate,” showed that only 3 studies examined the role of chocolate consumption and acne. One clinical trial had 8 patients,3 anothe...

To examine the neural circuitry involved in food craving, in making food particularly appetitive and thus in driving wanting and eating, we used fMRI to measure the response to the flavour of chocolate, the sight of chocolate and their combination in cravers vs. non-cravers. Statistical parametric mapping (SPM) analyses showed that the sight of chocolate produced more activation in chocolate cr...