There is a substance in chocolate that slows down aging

Among the natural substances that science continues to study to understand whether they really have health effects, the dark chocolate has long occupied an ambiguous position. On the one hand there are those who consider it little more than a sin of gluttony to be justified with vague promises of antioxidants, on the other those who attribute to it virtues which do not find much confirmation. But now researchers at King’s College London have discovered something unexpected: those who have higher levels of theobromine in their blood tend to have a younger biological age than their chronological age. And theobromine is an alkaloid found in cocoathe same compound that makes chocolate toxic to dogs, but which appears to be associated with different effects in humans.

cocoa and longevity: the study

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The study, published on Aginganalyzed data from 509 people from the TwinsUK database and 1,160 from the KORA group. Biological age was measured through DNA methylation and the length of telomeres, those protective structures at the ends of chromosomes that shorten with age. Result: those who had more theobromine in their circulation showed markers of slowed aging. “We found it links between a key component of dark chocolate and staying younger for longer” explains Jordana Bell, professor of epigenomics. “Be careful: we are not saying that people should eat more chocolate, but this research can help us understand how everyday foods can often hold clues to healthier and longer lives.”

The secret of theobromine

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The researchers tested whether other cocoa or coffee metabolites also showed similar associations, but theobromine was the only one with this specific relationship with longevity. Although best known for its toxicity in dogs, theobromine has been linked to a possible reduction in the risk of heart disease in humans, but has thus far received limited attention from science. Now it is being examined whether the effect occurs alone or whether it works together with other components of dark chocolate, such as polyphenols. “The next questions are: What is behind this association? And what other interactions are there between food metabolites and our epigenome?” comments Ramy Saad, first author of the research.

A message to the greedy

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The authors of the study caution against thinking that increasing your consumption of dark chocolate is automatically beneficial. Chocolate, in fact, also contains sugar, fat and other ingredients, and more studies are needed to understand how theobromine really interacts with the body. However, if one day we were able to isolate and understand the mechanism, gluttons would finally have a (additional) scientific justification for their weaknesses.