The old question whether chocolate is or isn't healthy. Its a question many researchers tried to awnser, but most of the exmperiments showed varied results. An italian research group now conducted a meta-analysis of the available studies, where they looked at the effects of flavanol, antioxidants found in cacoa-beans.
Their study found that the consumption of flavanols causes an increase in blood flow to specific parts of the brain. These parts serve the working memory, attention span, and speed of processing imagery. Al these functions improved significantly, thus improving the overall cognition, after consumption of flavanols. The strengt of these effects weren't great on young and healthy adults. However they did discover that eating the treat regularly over a long period of time improved cognition of older adults with mild cognitive decline.
Off course, this doesn't compensate the effects of added sugar in milk chocolate. The best thing is to regularly eat darker chocolate, containing less sugar, and more cocoa, and thus more flavanols, maybe making you the smartest granddad in the world!
Source: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnut.2017.00019/full
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