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20.04.2022

Cacao extract CocoaVia makes your brain work faster

Do you wish your brain would work a little faster? Before experimenting with all sorts of obscure pharmacological substances, try concentrated cocoa extracts. Try CocoaVia, for example.

Study
Italian researchers at the University of L'Aquila divided 90 healthy elderly people into 3 groups. For 8 weeks, all the elderly in all three groups drank a chocolate drink every day that they made by dissolving a sachet in water.

One group consumed a daily sachet containing 993 milligrams of cocoa phenols [HF], a second group a pouch containing 520 milligrams of cocoa phenols [MF] and a third group finally consumed a sachet containing 48 milligrams of cocoa phenols every day.

CocoaVia
The researchers used an extract from the cocoa bean, which is now on the market as CocoaVia. CocoaVia is a product of Mars, which has paid for a lot of research since the 1990s into the biological effects of the phenols in cocoa. [cocoavia.com]

Mars also paid for the study that this post is about. You can also find the study on the website that CocoaVia sells.

Before and after the supplementation period, the researchers determined the cognitive abilities of the subjects using a series of standard tests.

Results
One of those tests, the MMSE, measures whether the cognitive abilities of the elderly are still intact. This test showed no effect of CocoaVia. That is not surprising, because the scores of the test subjects were high. There was nothing wrong with them.

However, other tests did show the effect of supplementation. The Trail Making Tests [TMT] A and B for example. In TMT A and TMT B, study participants must connect a batch of apparently randomly presented symbols in a logical way. The tests measure the speed at which the brain can work, its ability to switch from one mental function to another, and motor skills.

Yet another test was the Verbal Fluency Test [VFT]. In this test, study participants have to name as many words as possible that belong to the same category during one minute.

On both the TMTs and VFT, the users of the high-dose CocoaVia scored several tens of percent better than the users of the low-dose CocoaVia.

Click on the table for a larger version.

CocoaVia supplementation lowered the 'bad cholesterol' LDL and raised the 'good cholesterol' HDL. At the same time, the supplement lowered both systolic and diastolic blood pressure, just like the HOMA-IR. The HOMA-IR is a complex marker for insulin resistance.

Conclusion
"These findings [...] provide encouraging evidence that the regular inclusion of flavanol-containing foods may be an effective dietary approach for counteracting cognitive changes associated with brain aging and offer a possible complementary strategy to support cognitive and cardiovascular health with age", summarize the Italians.

Source:
Am J Clin Nutr. 2015 Mar;101(3):538-48.

More:
Cocoa makes you alert 26.06.2015

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