Cacao good for your mood AND gut, study finds

Chocolate makes you happy, we often hear. (I am talking about the unprocessed dark chocolate of 85% and higher.) Today we look at this from a different angle: not the heart, but the belly!

THE STUDY
At the end of 2021, a study was published about dark chocolate and it’s effect on our
mood and the health of intestines. The randomised controlled trail study examined 48 men and women between the ages of 20-30. This was a controlled experiment in which random
subjects were divided into 3 different groups, each with a different treatment in order to
find out the effect of the product (in this case dark chocolate).

The participants were divided into 3 groups. One control group that did not receive any
chocolate, a second group that received 10 grams of 70% dark chocolate (250 grams of
polyphenols*) and the third group that received the 10 grams of 85% dark chocolate (400
grams of polyphenols*).

MORE CHOCOLATE, LESS NEGATIVITY
To investigate whether the consumption of dark chocolate had an influence on their mood
in daily life, the participants were asked to log their mood before and after the study. The
conclusion from the results was that the group that had eaten 85% dark chocolate for 3
weeks showed a positive improvement of their negative emotional status. In the participants
who consumed none or 70% dark chocolate, no effect was seen.

CACAO INCREASING GOOD GUT BACTERIA
Maybe you never heared this, bur gut and brain are constantly communicating with each other, this is called the brain-gut axis. What was found was that the intestinal bacteria improved in the group that had consumed the 85% dark chocolate. These participants developed a greater diversity of gutbacteria. And amazingly, the bacteria associated with a positive mood (the bacteria Blautiaobeum) had markedly increased! So it’s not such a strange development that these participants suddenly had a more positive outlook in their daily life.