- Daily cocoa extract supplements may improve cognitive health among older people consuming a poor-quality diet, a new randomized controlled trial suggests.
- The authors observed that cocoa extract resulted in no cognitive benefit for older people who regularly consumed a high quality diet.
- Cocoa is rich in flavanols, which may relieve oxidative stress and inflammation.
- More research on the potential cognitive benefits of cocoa is still needed.
A recent study suggests that daily cocoa extracts may promote cognitive health in older people with habitually poor diet quality.
No cognitive benefit from daily doses of cocoa extract was observed among the participants in the study overall.
However, the study’s authors report a “borderline trend” for individuals whose diets are poor quality.
The participants in the study were a clinical cohort of the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), a randomized clinical trial (RTC) conducted at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, MA.
This larger trial, involving 21,442 older Americans, investigated the benefits of a daily cocoa extract supplement for cognition and a daily multivitamin-mineral supplement for cardiovascular disease and cancer prevention.
The study was partially funded by Mars Edge, a division of Mars Inc. dedicated to nutrition research. Other funders included the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the FDA, Harvard Catalyst, Contract Pharmacal Corp, and Pfizer Consumer Healthcare.
The finds are published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Studies of the effects of cocoa on cognitive health, say the authors, have been inconsistent.
The mild effect seen in this study for people with a low quality diet suggests a further direction for research.
The study involved 573 older individuals whose mean age was 69.6. Of this group, 49.2% were women.
Each participant was given a comprehensive cognitive assessment at the beginning of the study, with follow-up testing over the next two years.
Some…
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