Snacking On Dark Chocolate Improves Athletic Performance, Study Shows
20 Apr 2016 --- Eating dark chocolate as a daily snack could help boost athletic performance, study from London's Kingston University reveals.
A team led by postgraduate research student Rishikesh Kankesh Patel discovered that dark chocolate provides similar benefits to beetroot juice, now taken regularly by elite athletes after studies showed it can improve performance. "Beetroot juice is rich in nitrates, which are converted to nitric oxide in the body. This dilates blood vessels and reduces oxygen consumption – allowing athletes to go further for longer," Mr Patel explained.
The team from the British university wanted to find out whether dark chocolate could provide a similar boost, as it contains a substance called epicatechin – a type of flavanol found in the cacao bean, that also increases nitric oxide production in the body.
To test the theory, Mr Patel carried out a study with a group of nine amateur cyclists. After undergoing initial fitness tests to establish a baseline for comparison, the participants were then split into two groups. The first group was asked to replace one of its normal daily snacks with 40g of a dark chocolate known to be rich in flavanols for a fortnight, while the other participants substituted 40g of white chocolate for one of their daily snacks as a control.
The effects of the athletes' daily chocolate consumption were then measured in a series of cycling exercise tests. The cyclists' heart rates and oxygen consumption levels were measured during moderate exercise and in time trials. After a seven-day interval, the groups then switched chocolate types and the two-week trial and subsequent exercise tests were repeated.
The study, which is published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, found that after eating dark chocolate, the riders used less oxygen when cycling at a moderate pace and also covered more distance in a two-minute flat-out time trial.
Mr Patel said the results opened the door for more research which could eventually lead to dark chocolate becoming a staple part of endurance athletes' diets: "Both dark chocolate and beetroot juice are known to increase nitric oxide, which is the major mechanism we believe is behind these results," Mr Patel said. "We found that people could effectively exercise for longer after eating dark chocolate – something that's not been established before in this way."
Mr Patel hopes to discover the optimal flavanol level in dark chocolate for boosting athletic performance:
"We want to see whether the boost in performance is a short term effect – you eat a bar and within a day it works – or whether it takes slightly longer, which is what the initial research is showing," Mr Patel said.
Dr Owen Spendiff, who co-supervised the study, has conducted research around beetroot juice and athletic performance, said that Mr Patel's work showcased some of the cutting-edge research being carried out within Kingston University's sport science facilities. "Rishikesh's findings are really interesting, as he has proven the exercise benefits of dark chocolate for the first time," he said.
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