Why do we love chocolate?

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Why are some of us drawn to chocolate, while others are completely indifferent to it? It all depends on the intestinal microflora. According to scientists, addiction to chocolate depends on the composition of the human intestinal flora.

Researchers at the Nestlé Research Center decided to find out what causes cravings for chocolate. It should be noted that the study was fraught with some difficulties - it took more than a year to find 11 people in Switzerland who did not like chocolate.

The experimenters examined urine and blood in both groups (chocolate lovers and people indifferent to it) and found significant differences in 12 indicators. For example, the blood of "addicted" had lower levels of low-density lipoproteins and higher levels of the amino acid glycine, while 11 "non-lovers" of sweets had higher levels of taurine. The found differences turned out to be associated with a certain type of bacteria that constantly live in the intestine.

There is another explanation that it is just the consumption of chocolate that can create favorable conditions for the reproduction of this particular type of bacteria in our intestines.

"The Swiss study is so logical and sensible that it’s strange how they didn’t think of it before," says Bruce Herman, professor of food chemistry at the University of California. True, it remains to be seen whether the food tastes of people are determined by bacteria or vice versa - the tastes of a person in early childhood lead to the formation of his intestinal flora of a certain composition.

One way or another, the study potentially holds great promise - if it turns out that changing the composition of the intestinal flora does change food preferences, it will be possible to correct the "wrong", harmful tastes to health by changing the composition of bacteria living in the intestine.