Dark chocolate has many health benefits, but can it also improve eyesight?

The flavanol content of cocoa definitely improves some health indicators such as blood pressure, reduces the risk of stroke and heart attack, and improves mood. Not only these, but also other health benefits we have offered you in the article Health benefits of chocolate.

A new study on healthy, young adults even shows a significant improvement in eyesight... While this is great news for sensationalist headlines, we've dug into the study instead, and bring you an unemotional analysis of it.

Study

This is a randomized, blinded study of 30 healthy, young adults (age ≈26) who have normal vision and a history of no vision problems.
All subjects were tested after dark and milk chocolate.

Tests were spaced at least 72 hours apart. On the test days, subjects ate either 47 g of dark chocolate (72% cocoa - 316 mg flavanols) or 40 g of milk chocolate (12.4 mg flavanols).

The following were tested:

1. Visual accuracy at high contrast
2. Sensitivity to contrast in lowercase letters
3. Contrast sensitivity for upper case letters

Results

All 30 subjects completed the test. Differences were only noticeable for lowercase letter contrast. The other two parameters did not change.

The researchers' estimates are as follows.

Flavanol content may have improved the retinal visual channel and/or blood circulation in the brain, thereby improving oxygenation and nutrient supply at metabolically active sites.

What this could mean

Cocoa flavanols are well known to improve blood circulation,[1] but only one study has tested their effect on vision in healthy subjects.

Subjects were given a dose of 720 mg of flavanols, tested 2 hours after ingesting it, and showed improvement[2].

Flavanols also seem promising for patients with glaucoma or ocular hypertension[3].

The shortcomings of this study should also be mentioned.

• The flavanol content of the chocolates was not measured but estimated. This is a problem because not all chocolates are made equally and processing at high temperatures is quite damaging to flavanol content[4][5][6][7].
• Reducing the heat exposure time can reverse this process, but simply buying dark chocolate does not guarantee a high flavanol content.[8] Nor is cocoa content a reliable indication.
• Furthermore, the flavanol content of cocoa varies with each batch, making the flavanol content data from the study quite questionable.
• Furthermore, we do not know whether the improvement in vision lasted beyond just 2 hours after eating chocolate, whether long-term consumption would have an effect on vision, or whether the same results would be obtained in people with visual impairment.
• The results of this study should be considered preliminary. Much more scientific research is needed to truly evaluate the effect of cocoa flavanols on vision.

What can I take away from this article?

Chocolate has many undeniable health benefits, but as far as the effects on vision are concerned, the effects are not yet sufficiently proven. Only consume good quality dark chocolate with a high cocoa content.

Our tip

Try the delicious Grand Zero fine chocolate without added sugars from BigBoy. 100g of chocolate contains only 8.2g of sugars!

Source: www.examine.com - Does dark chocolate help improve your eyesight?
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