Cocoa: Eye to Eye

The latest research to come out of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and the Institute of Food and Nutrition Science and Technology in Spain have come up with some interesting results linking cocoa powder with an improvement in visual acuity.

Cocoa Powder the essence of chocolate can also be taken as a medicine and the researchers discovered that eating 2.5 grams of pure natural cocoa powder can improve eyesight in healthy young adults and in others in daylight conditions. The study, published in the Journal of Functional Foods, analysed the effects of two dietary polyphenols: cocoa flavanols and red berry anthocyanins. The researchers attributed the positive effects on photopic visual acuity to improved attention or processing of visual information thanks to the flavanols and theobromine, a group of alkaloids which stimulate the central nervous system and are found in cocoa, similar to caffeine in coffee.