Eating milk chocolate every day may sound like a recipe for weight gain, but a new study of women experiencing post-menopause has found that eating a concentrated amount of milk chocolate during a narrow window of time in the morning may help the body burn fat and decrease blood sugar levels.
Many women going through post-menopause experience weight gain and higher blood sugar levels due to their changing hormones. Menopause involves dropping estrogen levels, which can result in higher insulin resistance and a lack of body fat distribution. Estrogen typically helps the body improve its insulin sensitivity and encourages the body to store fat in the hips and thighs, which is healthier than in the abdomen. Therefore, many women going through menopause are looking for solutions to minimize abdominal fat and regulate their blood sugar levels. According to a study, one of the ways to do that may be chocolate.
Can Chocolate Help Postmenopausal Women?
Researchers from the Brigham collaborated with investigators at the University of Murcia in Spain to find out about the effects of eating milk chocolate at different times of day. Together, they conducted a randomized and controlled trial of postmenopausal women who consumed either three and a half ounces of milk chocolate in the morning (within one hour after waking time) or at night, within one hour before bedtime. Then, they then compared the amounts of postmenopausal symptoms such as weight gain and blood sugar levels in those who ate chocolate in the morning or night to those who didn’t consume any chocolate.
Researchers report that the results of the study include:
- Morning or nighttime chocolate intake did not lead to weight gain.
- Eating chocolate in the morning or in the evening can influence hunger and appetite, microbiota composition, sleep and more.
- A high intake of chocolate during the morning hours could help to burn fat and reduce blood glucose levels.
- Evening/night chocolate altered the next morning’s resting and exercise metabolism.
- Consumption of chocolate in the morning decreased fasting glucose (levels of sugar in the blood) by 4.4%, while chocolate intake during the evening/night showed a significant increase of fasting glucose levels by +4.9% when compared to consuming chocolate in the morning.
“Our findings highlight that not only ‘what’ but also ‘when’ we eat can impact physiological mechanisms involved in the regulation of body weight,” stated Dr. Frank A. J. L. Sheer, PhD, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
“Our volunteers did not gain weight despite increasing caloric intake. Our results show that chocolate reduced ad libitum energy intake, consistent with the observed reduction in hunger, appetite, and the desire for sweets shown in previous studies,” said Dr. Marta Garaulet, PhD, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
Frank A. J. L. Scheer, PhD, MSc, Neuroscientist and Marta Garaulet, PhD, Visiting Scientist, are both doctors in the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, in the Department of Medicine and Neurology, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Drs. Scheer and Garaulet are co-corresponding authors of a new paper published in The FASEB Journal.
Their statements and the results of their study show that those who have gained weight and/or have high blood sugar due to menopause might benefit from eating a few ounces of chocolate in the morning or evening.
Food as medicine is a fantastic solution and practice but realistically will not solve all your bodily problems. So, if you are going through menopause or are post-menopausal, please talk to your general practitioner or gynecologist about what you can do, besides examine your diet, to alleviate your menopause symptoms.
Source: Â Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
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