Can a cup of cocoa a day help you?

The causes of mental and physical fatigue experienced by people with MS are complex, and likely to include neural, inflammatory, metabolic, and psychological factors. None of the currently available approaches offers long term relief, say the researchers.

Previous research suggests that dark chocolate, containing between 70 and 85 per cent cocoa solids, is associated with an improvement in subjectively assessed fatigue in people with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME).

Cocoa, like dark chocolate, is rich in flavonoids––substances found abundantly in fruit and vegetables and associated with anti-inflammatory properties.

This prompted the researchers to see if it might also be worth exploring Cocoa potential in helping to tackle the fatigue associated with MS.

They randomly assigned 40 adults recently diagnosed with the relapsing remitting form of MS and fatigue to drink a cup of either high flavonoid cocoa powder mixed with heated rice milk (19) or a low flavonoid version (21) every day for six weeks.  Participants were instructed to wait 30 minutes before taking any prescribed medication or eating or drinking anything else, but otherwise to stick to their usual diet.  Fatigue and fatigability–the speed with which mental and physical fatigue set in–were formally assessed before the start, at the mid-point, and at the end of the trial.  And participants also subjectively rated their fatigue on a scale of 1 to 10, at 10.00, 15.00, and 20.00 hours each day, and monitored their activity with a pedometer.  After six weeks there was a small improvement in fatigue in 11 of those drinking high flavonoid cocoa compared with eight of those drinking the low flavonoid version.

Those drinking the high flavonoid version showed a 45 per cent improvement in subjectively assessed fatigue and an 80 per cent improvement in walking speed.  Although not objectively measured, pain symptoms also improved more in the high flavonoid group.

If the findings are confirmed in larger studies, it may offer a simple dietary approach to a persistent and hard to treat symptom, which affects nine out of 10 people with MS, suggest the researchers.

Reference

https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/90/5/507

Related Posts

  • Is Reiki a Placebo? – Part 3

    While in Part 2 we looked at the impact of healing (Reiki) energy on cells, yeast & animals, that is not the same as on human beings.  So in this post I want to share with you some of the research done on humans.  So I want to start with looking at physical factors... Krieger (1975) carried out four experiments with the intention of raising blood haemoglobin levels in patients. The technique of Therapeutic Touch (similar to Reiki) was used, with Oscar Estebany being the healer in the first three experiments and nurses trained in the method in the fourth. Significant differences in blood haemoglobin levels were obtained in:

    • 43 healed patients as against 33 controls
    • 46 healed patients as compared to 33 controls, where the groups were more carefully matched
    Miller (1982) undertook a double-blind study on 96 hypertension patients divided equally into experimental and control groups. The experimental patients received distant healing from eight healers, together with their normal medical treatment; the controls received no healing. The results showed a significant improvement  in the systolic blood pressure of the healed group, as compared to the controls, but no significant changes in the diastolic blood pressure. So there is clear scientific evidence that Reiki does have a desirable impact on the human body. Full References Krieger, Dolores (1975). Therapeutic touch: The imprimatur of nursing. Am. J. Nursing, 7, 784-787. Miller, R. N. (1982). Study on the effectiveness of remote mental healing. Med. Hypoth., 8, 481-490.

  • Can daily dark chocolate boost athletic performance?

    I will begin with a confession, I love dark chocolate.  So I am an avid reader of any scientific research on dark chocolate, as its always good to be able to justify eating chocolate for its health benefits! Recently a research team studied nine amateur cyclists to establish whether epicatechin, a type of flavanol found in the cocoa bean, would increase nitric oxcide production in the body.  Nitric oxide expands blood vessels, allowing more oxygen to get to vital organs, which boosts endurance and sports performance.  The cyclists were divided into tow grounds, with the first instructed to replace a normal daily snack with 40g of dark chocolate for two weeks, while the other group did the same for white chocolate. The two groups were assessed in cycling exercise tests in the laboratory to measure heart rates, oxygen consumption levels during moderate exercise.  The groups switched chocolate types after a one-week interval and repeated the tests.  The cyclists eating dark chocolate were found to use less oxygen and covered more distance in time trails compared to the cyclists eating white chocolate. So maybe dark chocolate shoulder become a staple part of endurance althlete's diets. Reference R K Patel, J Brounder, O Spendiff, 2015, Dark chocolate supplementation reduces the oxygen cost of moderate intensity cycling, Journal of International Society of Sports Nurition, 12:47.

  • Are low levels of Vitamin D associated with an increase risk of Diabetes?

    Vitamin D is a fat-soluble, hormone-like vitamin, which means body fat acts as a "sink" by collecting it. If you're overweight or obese, you're therefore likely going to need more vitamin D than a slimmer person -- and the same holds true for people with higher body weights due to muscle mass i.e. amateur and professional athletes. It is common knowledge that obesity and physical inactivity can lead to type 2 diabetes.  But what about your impact does your levels of Vitamin D have?. The Endocrine Society, published details of a study that looked at the vitamin D levels of 118 people with a wide range of weights (from slim to morbidly obese) while taking into account whether they had diabetes.   According to the researchers people who have low levels of vitamin D are more likely to have diabetes, regardless of how much they weighed.  The researches concluded that vitamin D is associated more closely with glucose metabolism (and hence your chance of getting diabetes) than obesity! One Indian study found that vitamin D and calcium supplementation, in combination with exercise, can prevent pre-diabetes from progressing into type 2 diabetes. The study found that for every unit increase in vitamin D levels, the risk of progression to diabetes in people with pre-diabetes went down by 8 percent. In 2013 Taleai, Mohamdi and Adgi found that type 2 diabetics given 50,000 IUs of oral vitamin D3 per week for eight weeks experienced "a meaningful reduction" in fasting plasma glucose and insulin. Other research showing this link includes but is not limited to the following:

    In 2016 scientists studied 23 children with type 1 diabetes to understand the  association between type 1 diabetes control and vitamin D deficiency.  The team found those children with healthy weight had a high incidence of low levels of vitamin D, especially if they were Caucasians. In particular, they found children who were not normally considered to be at risk for low levels of vitamin D had low levels. The researchers recommending monitoring the vitamin D levels of all children with type 1 diabetes.   Research Endocrine Society study see>> https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/tes-vdd021815.php Indian Study reported in Nephrology 22 June 2014 see>> http://www.nephrologynews.com/raising-low-vitamin-d-levels-lowers-risk-of-prediabetes-progressing-to-diabetes-in-study/  2013 study see >> https://dmsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1758-5996-5-8 2016 study see >> http://www.hcplive.com/medical-news/children-with-diabetes-may-lack-vitamin-d