BACKGROUND Chocolate consumption has long been associated with enjoyment and pleasure. Popular claims confer on chocolate the properties of being a stimulant, relaxant, euphoriant, aphrodisiac, tonic and antidepressant. The last claim stimulated this review. METHOD We review chocolate's properties and the principal hypotheses addressing its claimed mood altering propensities. We distinguish b...

Inadvertent exposure to peanut in foods poses health risks for peanut-allergic individuals that can be reduced by improving detection systems for allergen contaminants in food products and manufacturing processes. Detection of peanut in chocolate has been especially difficult. We report the optimization of conditions for measuring a major peanut allergen, Ara h 1, in chocolate with the use of a...

It is in the nature of the training and work of pathologists to be practical, observant and down-toearth. We appreciate that food is central to the experience of all societies, hence, in communicating many of our descriptions of pathological changes, we use terms related to food. For example, we use terms such as “bread-and -butter” pericarditis, “caseous” necrosis, “anchovy sauce” abscesses, “...

In ancient Mayan texts cocoa is considered a gift of the gods: Pre-Columbian populations used chocolate as medicine, too. After the discovery of America, chocolate was introduced in Europe, but Christian Europe looked to this new exhilarating drink with extreme suspiciousness and criticism. From this reaction, the necessity derived to appeal to the reasons of health, with which doctors and scie...

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of repeated unreinforced exposure to chocolate cues in persons reporting chocolate craving. Participants in the experimental group (n=40) received 10 consecutive brief exposures to chocolate cues in each of two sessions, separated by 1-3 days. Control participants (n=18) received two exposures at the start and end of each session. Chocolate cr...

Chocolate consumption is anecdotally associated with an increase in happiness, but little experimental work has examined this effect. We combined a food type manipulation (chocolate vs. crackers) with a mindfulness manipulation (mindful consumption vs. non-mindful consumption) and examined the impact on positive mood. Participants (N = 258) were randomly assigned to eat a small portion (75 calo...

BACKGROUND In cirrhosis, hepatic endothelial dysfunction as a result of oxidative stress contributes to the postprandial increase in hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG). OBJECTIVE We aimed at testing the hypothesis that dark chocolate, which holds potent antioxidant properties, might attenuate the postprandial increase in HVPG in patients with cirrhosis. DESIGN In this phase 2, double-b...

Epidemiological studies suggest that chocolate increases the incidence and severity of acne. Here we demonstrate that chocolate consumption primes human blood mononuclear cells from volunteers to release more interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and IL-10 upon stimulation with Propionibacterium acne or Staphylcoccus aureus, the two microorganisms involved in the pathogenesis of acne. In contrast, production ...

In the present study, the effects of substituting sucrose with maltitol and xylitol as bulking agents in compound milk chocolate were examined in relation to their physico-chemical, rheological and sensory characteristics. Standard reference chocolate was made using sucrose. The Casson mathematical model was the best fitting model for predicting rheological properties. Compared with chocolate s...

We investigated the discrimination of what, when, and where in rats (n D 5) using an eightarm radial maze. Rats received daily training consisting of forced-choice visits to four baited arms, one of which was randomly chosen each day to contain chocolate (Phase 1). In Phase 2, all eight arms were available. After a short (30 min) retention interval (RI), the four arms that were not available in...