A young man was walking along a beach by an ocean, when he found a bottle with a cork holding its contents in place. He picked it up, pulled out the cork, and out popped a genie.
“Thank you for setting me free,” said the genie, “and for that, you get three wishes.” “Well, said the man, “give me a million dollars.” POOF! A million dollars lay at his feet.
“What is your second wish master?” “Well, how about an expensive car?” POOF! A new model Mercedes-Benz showed up.
“What is your final wish?”, asked the genie. The man said, “Make me irresistible to women.”
POOF! He was turned into a chocolate candy bar.
This story was probably created by some manufacturer of chocolate back in the days when more women than men preferred chocolate. These days the numbers show that men's love of chocolate is on a par with women's preference for the treat. A UK study by research group Mintel revealed 91% of all women admit to eating chocolate, with the men not far behind at more than 87%.
Chocolate is an $83 billion a yer business according to the research firm MarketsandMarkets. That makes the industry's value larger than the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of more than 130 nations on earth. (1)
Science continues trying to discover the secrets of chocolate. But as Elizabeth Finkel notes, “You have to wonder whether the science itself has become mired in chocolate.” An example—the 2012 report in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine suggesting nations that ate more chocolate produced more Nobel prize winners. (2)
Switzerland was the top performer in both the number of Nobel Laureates and chocolate consumption. Author Franz Messerli's hypothesis-- “It seems likely that in a dose-dependent way, chocolate intake provides the abundant fertile ground needed for the sprouting Nobel Laureates.”
The findings thrown up by this study are not meant to be taken seriously. The paper was clearly a huge joke, and a fine teaching lesson in spurious correlations. (2)
In a similar vein, a study by John Bohannon received significant worldwide media coverage after he reported that people following a low-carbohydrate diet lost weight 10% faster if they ate one chocolate bar every day. The problem? The real aim of the study was to see how easy it would be to get bad science into the news. (3)
The study was submitted to 20 journals and was ultimately published by the International Archives of Medicine. Backed with a very helpful news release, the team sent word out about the study and swiftly news outlets began to cover the research.
The project was a resounding success. The findings were reported by newspapers such as Bild in Germany- Europe's largest daily newspaper, The Daily Mail and The Daily Express in the UK, websites such as The Times of India and The Huffington Post, and television shows in the US and Australia.
Unfortunately, as this study proves, sometimes the lure of an eye-catching headline and provocative findings can be enough to distract from shortcomings that can be obscured by numbers, symbols and highly specific language. (4)
This story should serve as a cautionary tale both to readers and reporters, reminding us all to be extra discerning when it comes to evaluating the worth of studies that appear in the news. It was designed to help demonstrate just how easy it is to turn bad science into big headlines behind diet fads. (3)
In of spite all this foolishness, there are many bonafide studies showing the benefits of chocolate.
Lovers of dark chocolate have known for some time that their favorite treat can help protect them against high blood pressure and cut the risk of diabetes. But now Australian scientists say that it can even benefit those who are already at high risk of heart attacks and strokes, reports Jenny Hope. The protective effects have been shown only for dark chocolate which is at least 60-70 percent cocoa. Milk or white chocolate do not provide the same benefits. (5)
Scientists are now homing in on what ingredients in dark chocolate might help prevent obesity as well as type-2 diabetes. They found that one particular type of antioxidant in cocoa, (one of the most flavanol-rich foods around) prevented laboratory mice from gaining excess weight and lowered their blood sugar levels. (6)
New research from Sweden claims that moderate chocolate intake can reduce a man's risk of stroke. (7)
Recent findings show that the tongue's taste receptors are sensitive to compounds such as anandamide. As the chocolate's fatty chemical lands on your tongue, it could raise the concentration of any locally produced anandamide, which in turn sends a signal direct to the brain. So chocolate ends up tasting especially good. Daniele Piomelli, a pharmacologist as the University of California, Irvine, says it is still speculative but this may at least explain something of chocolate's bewitching taste. Overall your body's message is 'eat more of that fatty acid,' Piomelli says. (2)
A somewhat unexpected benefit of chocolate was reported by Joe Schwarcz. A study conducted at Yale University has shown that students exposed to chocolate smell while studying for an exam can recall the material better if they are also exposed to chocolate while taking the exam. (8)
This finding may not be as far-fetched as it sounds. Scientists at the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago have found that a floral scent helps volunteers perform puzzle solving tasks 17 percent more quickly, and that aroma engineering in a Las Vegas casino can increase customer optimism and, therefore, willingness to gamble by as much as 53 percent. (9)
So, as an avid consumer of chocolate, I'll take all these positives over those using bogus chocolate studies to fool the media an an unsuspecting public.
Jack Dini
Livermore, CA
References
1. “Who consumes the most chocolate?”, thecnnfreedomprojectblogs.cnn.com, January 17, 2012
2. Elizabeth Finkel, “Has science become mired in chocolate?”, Cosmos Magazine, September 2013
3. John Bohannon, “I fooled millions into thinking chocolate helps weight loss. Here's how,” io9.com, May 27, 2015
4. James McIntosh, “Slimming chocolate study fools the world's media,” medicinenewstoday, June 3, 2015
5. Jenny Hope, “Another excuse to eat chocolate: dark variety can help heart-risk patients and cut diabetes,” dailymail.co.uk, May 31, 2012
6. Melanie R. Dorenkott et al., “Oligomeric cocoa procyanidins possess enhanced bioactivity.....”, Agric. Food Chem., 2, 2216, 2014
7. “Can chocolate prevent strokes?”, American Council on Science and Health, August 30, 2012
8. Joe Schwarcz, Radar, Hula Hoops, and Playful Pigs, (Toronto, ECW Press, 1999), 133
9. Lyall Watson, Jacobson's Organ, Plume Books, 2001
