A recent study has found that a chemical that is found in chocolate, tea, grapes and blueberries can help to improve memory.
Hilariously tested on mice with Mars choccy, the study has found that epicatechin improves their memory and may well work on humans. Pleasingly the study didn’t only focus on chocolate, thus fuelling more and more chocolate is good for you stories. Without digressing too much that really is one of my pet hates. I just can no longer abide the whole ‘red wine and chocolate is good for your health, don’t you know’ claim. Isn’t it more that there is are particular nutrients within red wine and chocolate that are good for you? Don’t you think these chemicals might be found elsewhere? Don’t you think you might be able to find them in a form that isn’t wrapped in alcohol or saturated milky fuelled fat?
Sorry, I digress. And ‘the rage’ is very acid-forming so I’ll move back to the mice and their memory boosting Mars bars.
So anyway, the research (published in the Journal of Neuroscience) has shown that epicatechin (also one of the active calorie burning ingredients in Coca-Cola’s Enviga drink) is very useful. I’m keeping my superlatives quite low key until this has been tested on humans too, but the early signs are good. As you can probably guess I am buoyed by the research also pointing out that epicatechin from grapes and teas is also as effective on the memory-mice and the researchers also even nutritionists highlight that chocolate is high in fat and sugar, which may undo any benefits.
Heh, its just struck me that you might be wondering what it was that the mice were remembering. Well, they weren’t being asked to remember the usual stuff like where their car keys were or what the name of the other mouse was they met last night. It was a bit more James Bond than that. The BBC put the summary better than I could:
‘Half the mice in each group were allowed to run on a wheel for two hours each day and then, a month later, were trained to find a platform hidden in a pool of water.
Those that both exercised and ate the epicatechin diet remembered the location of the platform longer than the other mice. ‘
I like the fact that the results were better when coupled with exercise because exercise is often seen as just a means to make you look better/sexy, but in reality that’s the last reason for doing it. I also like the fact that running on a wheel is suggested to be a kind of treat for the mice i.e. they were ‘allowed’. Heh, I always sort of saw the mouse on wheel thing as a human spectator treat.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to the further studies being conducted but in the meantime I’m off to eat a couple of blueberries and have a cup of green tea.
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