Ingredient in chocolate found to boost memory

New York

SCIENCE edged closer to showing that an antioxidant in chocolate appears to improve some memory skills that people lose with age.

In a small study in the journal Nature Neuroscience, healthy people, aged 50 to 69, who drank a mixture high in antioxidants called cocoa flavanols for three months performed better on a memory test than people who drank a low-flavanol mixture.

On average, the improvement of high-flavanol drinkers meant they performed like people two to three decades younger on the study's memory task, said Dr Scott A Small, a neurologist at Columbia University Medical Center and the study's senior author. They performed about 25 per cent better than the low-flavanol group.

"An exciting result," said Craig Stark, a neurobiologist at the University of California, Irvine, who was not involved in the research. "It's an initial study, and I sort of view this as the opening salvo." He added, "And look, it's chocolate. Who's going to complain about chocolate?" The findings support recent research linking flavanols, especially epicatechin, to improved blood circulation, heart health and memory in mice, snails and humans. But experts said the new study - although involving only 37 participants and partly funded by chocolate company Mars Inc - goes further and was a well-controlled, randomised trial led by experienced researchers…