First, there was news about a study that found that caffeine reduces muscle pain caused by exercise and now researchers in England seem to think that mental arithmetic becomes easier when chocolate is involved.

But before those of you trying to complete your tax returns go nuts on chocolate, you’d better have a good read of the study because it’s not as clear cut as us chocoholics would like it to be. Yes, it seems that the study participants, after partaking in large amounts of flavanols (the compounds found in chocolate), did do better when asked to count backwards in groups of three from a random number between 800 and 999. But when these same participants were asked to count backwards by sevens, the ingested chocolate was of no help.

According to the researchers, this is because this more complex task uses a different part of the brain. Huh?

Still, as tax day gets closer, I’m sure I’ll be eating a chocolate or two to help make the numbers look better.

(image from sxc.hu)

Post from: Healthbolt