A few weeks ago I talked a little about chocolate's antioxidant properties. Much of that research suggests that only dark chocolate is beneficial for health, and that consuming milk chocolate or milk with chocolate will negate the health-giving effects. (Why? Because the proteins in milk bind to epicatechins, we think).
Love your milk chocolate? Well that's ok too. Milk chocolate may have short-term benefits on mental performance. Prof. Bryan Raudenbush of Wheeling Jesuit University, long interested in the psychology of food and eating, conducted a study on the effects of chocolate on cognitive performance. He found that performance on several cognitive tests was improved 15 minutes after eating milk chocolate in comparison to dark chocolate, carob, or nothing. Additionally, both milk and dark chocolate improved reaction time.
Chocolate contains theobromime, caffeine and phenethylamine (aka methylxanthines) and these components are hypothesised to be the major psychoactive (acting on the brain) chemicals in chocolate. Caffeine and the other methylxanthines are known to produce positive effects on cognition. Chocolate also has sugar, and milk chocolate has more sugar than dark chocolate. Sugar has also been shown to have positive cognitive effects, so the better performance of milk chocolate in this study may be due to the double-whammy (that is the scientific term) of methylxanthines and sugar. These effects are short-term as far as we know, so popping hershey's kisses and M&M's probably won't stave off dementia or Alzheimer's disease. But then...the antioxidants in dark chocolate may be protective....hmmm.