Mood state effects of chocolate

Abstract

Background

Chocolate consumption has long been associated with enjoyment and pleasure. Popular claims confer on chocolate the properties of being a stimulant, relaxant, euphoriant, aphrodisiac, tonic and antidepressant. The last claim stimulated this review.

Method

We review chocolate's properties and the principal hypotheses addressing its claimed mood altering propensities. We distinguish between food craving and emotional eating, consider their psycho-physiological underpinnings, and examine the likely ‘positioning’ of any effect of chocolate to each concept.

Results

Chocolate can provide its own hedonistic reward by satisfying cravings but, when consumed as a comfort eating or emotional eating strategy, is more likely to be associated with prolongation rather than cessation of a dysphoric mood.

Limitations

This review focuses primarily on clarifying the possibility that, for some people, chocolate consumption may act as an antidepressant self-medication strategy and the processes by which this may occur.

Conclusions

Any mood benefits of chocolate consumption are ephemeral.

Introduction

If any man has drunk a little too deeply from the cup of physical pleasure; if he has spent too much time at his desk that should have been spent asleep; if his fine spirits have become temporarily dulled; if he finds the air too damp, the minutes too slow, and the atmosphere too heavy to withstand; if he is obsessed by a fixed idea which bars him from any freedom of thought: if he is any of these poor creatures, we say, let him be given a good pint of amber-flavored chocolate....and marvels will be performed. — Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826).

Chocolate is cheaper than therapy and you don't need an appointment. — Unknown.

It is commonly claimed that chocolate has the capacity to lift spirits, to create highs and make people feel good. In an earlier review of atypical depression and its constituent feature of hyperphagia (Parker et al., 2002), we noted the capacity of carbohydrates (including chocolate) to have a comforting effect and to also promote ‘feel good’ sensations through the release of multiple gut and brain peptides. Others have argued that carbohydrate craving (including chocolate craving) in atypical depression (Moller, 1992) and in seasonal affective disorder (SAD) (Wurtman and Wurtman, 1989) is a form of self-medication and, in having an impact on brain neurotransmitters have antidepressant benefits.

Publication of our earlier paper (Parker et al., 2002) led to considerable media attention and inquiries both from those with a mood disorder and the general public as to whether chocolate actually was an antidepressant, so encouraging a literature review. Use of the single word ‘chocolate’ in search engines identified an extraordinarily broad literature warranting integration and encouraging the current review. While we had an agnostic view about chocolate having any antidepressant properties, it became apparent that there were many other topic components of equal importance, resulting in this review going beyond the initial simple objective. As noted by one journal assessor, aspects have some significance for our understanding of the biology of depression, and for the concept of ‘atypical depression’ in particular.

In this overview, we consider why people crave and eat chocolate, particularly in the context of food cravings and emotional eating, and chocolate's mood state effects. In the many comprehensive reviews (e.g., Bruinsma and Taren, 1999, Christensen, 1993, Ganley, 1989, Mercer and Holder, 1997, Ottley, 2000, Pelchat, 2002, Rogers and Smit, 2000, Weingarten and Elston, 1990), explanations of chocolate and carbohydrate cravings vary widely and include self-medication, homeostatic correction, hedonic experience, addiction to psychoactive substances and emotional eating theories, but it may be possible to integrate the disparate theories. We will argue that chocolate ‘craving’ and chocolate ‘emotional eating’ are two separate phenomena — although they can co-exist in the same individual — and that any mood state effects of chocolate are as ephemeral as holding a chocolate in one's mouth.