Love Chocolate, Love People?
Based on a new research, if you happen to have a sweet tooth, chances are, you’re friendlier than those who don’t. Volunteers who preferred chocolate to a non-sweet food product appeared to have a cheery personality.
Turns out, the main characteristic that these chocolate lovers possess is the passion for helping those in need. Nevertheless, it is still debatable whether it was because of chocolate’s mood-enhancing properties or merely the innate fondness of a person. Hold on, don’t go on pretending to be an extreme chocoholic just yet!
‘Our taste studies controlled for positive mood so the effects we found are not due to the happy or rewarding feeling one may have after eating a sweet food,’ says Brian Meiers, a psychology professor at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania.
The five experiments that involved sweetness and agreeability were done by researchers at Gettysburg College, St. Xavier University in Chicago and North Dakota State University with a sample above 500. ‘It is striking that helpful and friendly people are considered ‘sweet’ because taste would seem to have little in common with personality or behavior,’ Meiers added.
In one of the five studies conducted, researchers found out that the society tends to stereotype people who love sweets as the more agreeable ones than people who don’t. ‘People rated those associated with sweet food higher in agreeableness,’ Meiers said.
That judgment was done by merely looking at photographs of people they have never even met, and these people were making neutral facial expressions. Below the photos are short descriptions of them, say, they are fond of eating chocolate or not.
‘There has been a push to find out how these traits are self-predicting of what we do with our daily life,’ Sarah Moeller, a psychology professor at St. Xavier University. ‘We are showing that with these personality traits that you show subtle aspect of self,’ she added. The research was published in the Journal of Personality Social Psychology.
Who wouldn’t want to be considered as sweet? Now being a chocoholic isn’t so bad after all!
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Categories: chocolate articles Tags: Person, Psychology, Science, Studies, Study, Sweet Indulgences, sweets
Chocolate Cravings
Many people have an intense love of chocolate, but the female population seems to have a deeper love for it. The reason for this is allegedly connected to blood sugar levels, stress, and hormonal changes brought about by a woman’s menstrual cycle.
Chocolate contains sugar and caffeine and they are known to affect blood sugar levels. One reason behind our chocolate cravings is because the sugar in our blood is low and chocolates are our go-to for a quick sugar fix.
Chocolate always brings a different level of pleasure and this is because of the serotonin content which is a neurotransmitter that can influence the mood, which is the usual reason why chocolate is a well-known comfort food.
Days before menstrual periods, women’s serotonin levels are rather low. Also, hormonal changes that normally occur cause reduction in the minerals found in the blood, such as magnesium, which chocolate also contains. And that adds up to such powerful cravings.
However, some scientists claim that these cravings are merely brought about by cultural factors based on the findings that American women have stronger yearning for chocolate as compared to those of other nationalities, while some say that chocolate cravings are just psychological and that menstruating women feel that they are socially entitled to eat chocolate regardless of the fact that it can be very high in fat.
In addition to that, chocolate is debatably addicting. Research has shown that it contains alkaloid, compounds that make alcohol addictive. Scientists also found that chocolate contains anandamine, a compound that gets marijuana users addicted.
Phenylethylamine is another compound that chocolate contains and this can also be found in the body and its effects are rather similar to that of amphetamine. It can give people feelings such as euphoria and giddiness. These substances supposedly stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain and it peaks during orgasm which is probably the reason why some women prefer chocolate over sex. Interesting it is.
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Chocolate Equals Exercise?
A recent study shows that moderate amounts of high quality dark chocolate can be as good as working out.
Cocoa was found to have a particular compound called epithacin and this supposedly improved muscle like exercise does.
Researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, performed a test on three sets of 12-month-old mice, the counterpart of middle aged humans: one was given epithacin twice a day for 15 days, the second one was also given epithacin and spent 30 minutes on a treadmill, while the third exercised without receiving the extract.
Scientists have seen an increase in the number of energy-producing mitochondria, the ‘powerhouses’ of cells, in the mice that only took epithacin and they had considerably better muscle performance and took a longer time to get tired compared to those that only exercised. It was strange as these mitochondria are normally a byproduct of getting aerobic exercise such as running on the treadmill.
More mitochondria mean more energy, thus, allowing you to perform longer. The research team is hopeful that their experiments could eventually help in working against the dreaded age-related muscle wasting.
According to research leader Dr Moh Malek: “Those getting only epicatechin had a significantly better muscle performance and took longer to tire than those that only exercised. The group doing both showed even greater improvement, so it appears epicatechin combined with exercise may be a viable means to offset muscle ageing.” They were enthralled to learn how natural products can copy and improve the effects of exercise.
Unfortunately though, they are too early in their studies for them to come up with any conclusions about humans getting the same benefits as those of the mice’s.
Dr Malek also added: ”At the moment it would be a leap of faith to say the same effects would be seen in humans. But it is something we hope to identify in future studies.”
Categories: chocolate articles Tags: dark chocolate, research, Science, Studies
Depression And Chocolate Consumption Related, Further Studies Needed to Confirm if Chocolate Causes Depression
A Reuters report said that people who are depressed eat more chocolate than an average person. In numbers, US researchers reported that among their study’s respondents, those who were depressed ate an average of 8.4 servings of chocolate per month, as against 5.4 servings among those who were not depressed. The report said one serving of chocolate is equivalent to 1 ounce (28g) of chocolate.
This particular study, which shows a higher chocolate consumption among the depressed ones, was conducted on both men and women. One thing is for sure, depression and chocolate lovers go together. However, the study is nowhere near conclusive on which causes what.
I’ve always looked at chocolate as some sort of a comfort food. (I don’t like chocolate bars, but I like drinking chocolate drinks in chilled tetra packs.) I thought the “comfort” has something to do with chocolate stimulating some hormone in my body and subsequently easing my sad mood. But it turns out, chocolate could cause depression. Would you buy that? Could it be that chocolate triggers depression?
What I would like to find out is, does this study work on chocolate bars alone, or does it include all the many ways that a chocolate can be consumed – as ice cream ingredient, as chocolate drink, chocolate cake, etc?
It would also be informative if the study could consider the chocolatiers in the industry. We have chefs all over the world who make the most amazingly delicious chocolate confections. Surely, these chefs love the aroma of chocolate in their kitchen. Is their being drawn to the sweet aroma of chocolate an indication of predisposition to sadness? Or is the chocolate causing any amount of extra stress on them when they work in the kitchen, smelling nothing but chocolate?
Sources:
Depressed? You must like chocolate
Chocolatiers on Wiki
Written by Arlene Paredes
Freelance Writer, Photography Enthusiast, Backpacker Wannabe
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Categories: chocolate articles Tags: Causes, CHOCOLATE, Confirm, Consumption, Depression, Further, Needed, Related, Studies
