Is Cocoa The Brain Drug Of The Future?

That's the title of an article in Scientific American highlighting research done at the University of L'Aquila in Italy that shows that raw cocoa may be packed with brain-boosting compounds. The research suggests that cognitive function in the elderly is improved by ingesting high levels of natural compounds found in cocoa called flavanols.

But don't gorge on chocolate yet; most of the cognition enhancing compounds are removed during the process of making the the candy. Even dark chocolate has most of the flavanols removed.

One curious correlation of greater national chocolate consumption is highlighted in the article:

"The more chocolate a population consumes, the more Nobel Laureates it has: Columbia University's Franz Messerli discovered a positive correlation between annual chocolate consumption per capita and a country's number of Nobel Prize winners per 10 million people. The study is not meant to seriously imply that brilliance is the result of chocolate consumption—although Messerli believes chocolate probably has some benefits, his analysis was inspired purely by whimsical curiosity and exemplifies the hazards of reading too much into a correlation."

There's some food for thought.