AIM The goal of this study was to assess the effect of dark chocolate intake on cardiovascular parameters like blood pressure and heart rate values in a normotensive population. SUBJECTS AND METHODS This is a randomized cross-sectional study involving a total of 14,310 adults that were selected from various regions of Jordan. Well-trained pharmacy students interviewed participants in the outp...

There is emerging evidence that attentional biases are related to the consumption of substances such as alcohol and tobacco, and that attentional bias modification can reduce unwanted consumption of these substances. We present evidence for the first time to our knowledge that the same logical argument applies in the food and eating domain. We conducted two experiments that used a modified dot ...

Recent research has shown that suppressing food related thoughts can cause a subsequent increase in consumption relative to groups not suppressing, or thinking about food. The present study examined whether the effects of thought suppression on subsequent eating behaviour would interact with participants restrained eating status. One hundred and sixteen female participants were split into three...

BACKGROUND The brain plays a crucial role in the decision to eat, integrating multiple hormonal and neural signals. A key factor controlling food intake is selective satiety, ie, the phenomenon that the motivation to eat more of a food decreases more than does the motivation to eat foods not eaten. OBJECTIVE We investigated the effect of satiation with chocolate on the brain activation associ...

Interpreting other peoples' actions relies on an understanding of their current mental states (e.g. beliefs, desires and intentions). In this paper, we distinguish between listeners' ability to infer others' perspectives and their explicit use of this knowledge to predict subsequent actions. In a visual-world study, two groups of participants (passive observers vs. active participants) watched ...

Nine male, endurance-trained cyclists performed an interval workout followed by 4 h of recovery, and a subsequent endurance trial to exhaustion at 70% VO2max, on three separate days. Immediately following the first exercise bout and 2 h of recovery, subjects drank isovolumic amounts of chocolate milk, fluid replacement drink (FR), or carbohydrate replacement drink (CR), in a single-blind, rando...

When we first entered this scientific area about 10 years ago, we did not fully appreciate the emotional content of discussions involving chocolate. Contacts between medical scientists and the lay press tend to be sporadic. When chocolate is the issue, however, the lay press interest becomes intense and widespread. We have participated in many dozens, probably hundreds, of interviews about our ...

BACKGROUND In recent years, there has been increased interest in the potential health-related benefits of antioxidant- and phytochemical-rich dark chocolate and cocoa. OBJECTIVE The objective of the study was to examine the short-term (6 wk) effects of dark chocolate and cocoa on variables associated with neuropsychological functioning and cardiovascular health in healthy older adults. DESI...