Jordan News

Clinical trials have shown that in the elderly, a diet supplemented with cocoa flavanols — natural compounds found in cocoa beans — can improve performance on a specific memory task.

In the study, published in Scientific Reports, researchers from Columbia and New York University recruited 211 healthy people between the ages of 50 and 75 for a 12-week study.

At the beginning and end of the study, participants underwent a series of cognitive tests to assess their thinking and memory, and a subset of participants underwent an MRI scan to measure blood flow in the brain. During the experiment, participants were divided into four groups and received different levels of cocoa flavanol supplementation:
placebo (0 mg flavanols per day)
Low intake (260 mg)
Average intake (510 mg)
Eat large amounts (770 mg).

Dr Susan Koolhaas, Director of Research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: “This small trial highlights the potential effects of flavanols in cocoa beans over a short period of time, but we will need to see much longer, large-scale studies to fully understand whether a rich diet is effective in treating cocoa beans. These flavanols can improve cognitive function as you age. We also don’t know how important the improvements measured in the tests used here are for people in their daily lives.”

Although the researchers found that by the end of the study, those on a high-flavanol diet performed better on the list than the placebo group, they found no relationship between flavanol intake and performance on two other cognitive tests, one of which was the main study end point. The researchers found no effect for 12 weeks of taking flavanols on blood flow in the area of ​​the brain identified by the researchers before the study.

This study did not look at dementia, and it cannot be said whether a diet rich in cocoa would have any effect on preventing or delaying the onset of the disease.