The Flavanols In Cocoa May Support Brain Health, Study Suggests

Whether you're spending the holidays with family, a few close friends, or on your own this year, desserts are certainly a festive highlight. Sure, it's important to limit sugar and other inflammatory foods to keep your immune system strong, but new research makes a brain-healthy case for eating cocoa. 

Researchers from the University of Birmingham and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign looked at 18 nonsmoking adults with no history of brain, heart, vascular, or respiratory diseases. Each of the participants identified as male and was between 18 and 45 years old.

This triple-masked study randomly divided participants into two groups: One group consumed flavanol-rich cocoa, and the other consumed processed cocoa with very low levels of flavanols—neither group knew which type of cocoa they were consuming. 

Those who ate the flavanol-concentrated cacao were better able to defend against the excess carbon dioxide. In other words, the oxygenation process (increasing oxygen, decreasing CO2) was much faster for that group.

More specifically, "the levels of maximal oxygenation were more than three times higher in the high-flavanol cocoa versus the low-flavanol cocoa, and the oxygenation response was about one minute faster," lead researcher Catarina Rendeiro, Ph.D., said. 

When taking cognitive tests, the flavanol-rich group outperformed their baseline performance and the reduced flavanol group by 11%.

So, what are flavanols exactly? "Flavanols are small molecules found in many fruits and vegetables, and cocoa, too," Rendeiro stated. "They give fruits and vegetables their bright colors, and they are known to benefit vascular function."