Are you depressed? Must like chocolate
CHICAGO (Reuters) – People who are depressed eat more chocolate than those who are not, U.S. researchers said Monday in a study that provides data on the relationship between the food and mood.
Experts said that people who were depressed on average consumed 8.4 servings of chocolate per month, compared with 5.4 among those who were not.
Meanwhile, people suffering from severe depression, based on the results of a test, ate even more: 11.8 servings per month.
A small bar of chocolate or 28 grams was considered a portion .
“The depressed mood was significantly associated with increased consumption of chocolate,” wrote Dr. Natalie Rose, University of California, Davis, and University of California, San Diego and his colleagues in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
Many people believe that chocolate is something uplifting, but few studies have actually confirmed the connection between this food and humor. In addition, most analysts have studied only women.
Rose and his colleagues studied the relationship between chocolate and mood among women and 931 men who were not using antidepressants .
People in the study reported how most chocolate consumed and also completed a food frequency questionnaire on their overall diet.
Your statements mood were assessed using a depression scale used often.
The researchers found a strong association between consumption of chocolate and depression. Unlike other studies that looked only at women, the link is applied to both sexes.
But the study could not say why people are depressed they eat more chocolate.
It could be that depression stimulates cravings for chocolate and that people eat chocolate as a kind of self-treatment, confirming some studies in rats suggest that chocolate may improve mood, said the authors.
Or it could be that depression stimulates crave chocolate for another reason without providing any benefit on mood.
People the study did not obtain any “benefit as a treatment” of chocolate, the team said.
He added that it could be that eating lots of chocolate really make people feel depressed, other possible explanation for the association seen in their study.
There must be something psychological about chocolate, such as providing extra antioxidants. Or the effect of improving mood may be fleeting, as the temporary euphoria that alcohol produces, leaving people worse after the fact happened.
“Distinguishing between these possibilities require different study designs, “the team said, adding that further research is needed to determine if the chocolate is a cause of depression or a temporary salve.
(Editing by Steve Addison Spanish)