The Science-Backed Reason To Eat Chocolate For Breakfast Postmenopause

Today in good news: A bit of chocolate at breakfast might actually help out with keeping blood sugar levels low—specifically for postmenopausal women.

After the two weeks, researchers found that the women who had a piece of chocolate in the morning had 4.4% lower fasting glucose levels. Additionally, they found that having morning or evening chocolate resulted in decreased hunger and fewer sweet cravings.

Because this was a small study, it's not necessarily strong evidence you should start your day with 100 grams of chocolate—but there's also no real reason not to start your day with a bit of this delicious food, especially if it's dark chocolate.

On the mindbodygreen podcast, nutritional psychiatrist Drew Ramsey, M.D., posed the question: "Does dark chocolate need to be your treat, or can it be something that you have for breakfast?" According to this study, it might be OK—and Ramsey says so, too, especially if it's organic raw cacao.

"Those flavanols [in cacao] increase blood flow to the brain. They get involved with the microbiome," he explained on the podcast. "They are involved with short-term memory and in the areas where neurogenesis (new brain cell growth) happens in the brain."