perchance dreamer
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I love Theo 85% Dark Chocolate. It's very smooth.
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http://www.nutritionj.com/content/9/1/55
Basically the information is that a doctor noted that a patient felt better after eating dark chocolate and did a study of ten patients in his practice.
THey ate 15 grams of DARK chocolate three times a day. After eight weeks they reported improvement, enough improvement where two of them went back to work.
Some articles state that the reason MIGHT be because it increases serotonin.
I can't begin to believe that because that would just mean they emotionally felt better, which is not enough to go back to work. This article does not claim that.
I am venturing to guess another possible reason for the improvement.
See my other thread on biofilm-forming protozoa.
The protozoa (it's biofilm) keeps nutrients from entering the body. Perhaps the chocolate is toxic to this protozoa. (Chocolate is toxic to dogs and cats).
It's just a guess, but it's a possibility.
I do believe that when I got sick it was viral. It is possible that the virus opens the body to other infections such as the biofilm producing protozoa. It creates it's film, keeping nutrients from entering the body, creating a starvation of nutrients which reduces are energy to nil. This is guesswork. I'm trying to figure this out from my experience with this illness. I don't have a whole lot more to go on.
I have been trying eating dark (85%) chocolate for 6 weeks now and my energy level is up. Not enough to work, but I'm seeing improvement. Is it the chocolate? I don't know for sure. I'm always trying so many things to get well. Yes I know I'm supposed to try them one at a time so I know what's working, but sometimes I do get impatient with doing that. My life is only so long here.
It's supposed to take the full six weeks, with little or no improvement to start. The people in the study did not gain any weight. I'm finding the fat in the chocolate is cutting my appetite, so that may account, and anyway, someone figured out I was only adding 300 calories to my diet, daily.
I started out giving this a try as a joke. I've tried so many horrible awful things to try to get well. It would really be a joke if just eating chocolate would do it. I had to try it just to say I tried something easy to do.
If this ended up curing me it would be a big joke indeed!!!
I'd love it if others wanted to give this a try and report back on if it did anything for them. The nice thing about it is you don't need a prescription, and there aren't any side-effects (unless you get the good chocolate and eat too much of it like I did one week, and then I gained some weight, but as long as I've stuck to the 15 grams 3 times a day I have not gained any weight).
If nothing else, it's a good excuse to eat chocolate.
I envy anyone who can eat all that chocolate - it does such weird things to me. It is so incredibly stimulating that if I eat even a small piece, say at 6 pm, I will have insomnia, and often heart palpitations, until about 2 am. I must be allergic to the stuff.
"There are many diets, (such as the anti-candida diet, or eating dark chocolate), that claim to improve CFS/ME symptoms. Although some people say the anti-candida diet helps, the scientific evidence, (based on clinical trials), does not support this claim. The study on dark chocolate and ME involved only ten people and hence is too small to make any claims."
Mmmm.. I like unsweetened dark chocolate and a bit of chilli in a red wine jus. But my OH doesn't.
(I never touch coffee after 4.30 in the afternoon)
I submitted this comment back in Dec 2010. Unfortunately the journal never put it up. I thought I'd post it here now, just to put it on the record:
Ten subjects were enrolled in the study, 5 subjects completed both study arms.
I've put a strikethrough through some of it as I'm not sure about it now (2013)
Drop-outs should have been mentioned
I had been wondering if there was an error in the following: "The mean weight before and after the high cocoa chocolate intervention were unchanged at 77.04 kg and 76.80 kg, respectively (p value - 0.326). The mean weight before and after the placebo intervention were also unchanged (73.43 kg vs. 73.85 kg, respectively p value 0.345)." These two groups have a weight difference of approximately 3kg. As there are no dropouts mentioned in the paper, one presumes these are the same patients involved in a crossover trial with a two-week washout period. However I now notice in the prepublication history http://www.biomedcentral.com/imedia/1103149416384703_manuscript.pdf that not everyone completed both legs of the trial. I think it would be good if this information was included in the main text along with how many individuals did each leg of the trial.
Finally, the authors say, "As this was a proof of concept study; physical activity was not formally assessed. Biochemical markers including plasma polyphenol levels and inflammatory markers were not measured as part of the study as all of the baseline parameters prior to the study were normal, in accord with the criteria for the diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome."
The authors are presumably referring to the fact that the Fukuda definition requires researchers to exclude patients with medical or psychiatric disorders that could explain the chronic fatigue and other symptoms. However it is not the case that no abnormalities will ever be found in CFS (plenty have been) nor that the definition encourages researchers not to track biological markers.
Reference:
[1] Fukuda K, Straus SE, Hickie I, Sharpe MC, Dobbins JG, Komaroff A: The chronic fatigue syndrome: a comprehensive approach to its definition and study. International Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Study Group. Ann Intern Med 1994, 121(12):953-959.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-is-dark-chocolate-good-for-you-thank-your-microbes/Dark chocolate might pack a double positive punch for our health—thanks to the microbes that live in our gut. New research suggests that beneficial bacteria that reside toward the end of our digestive tract ferment both the antioxidants and the fiber in cocoa.
Some coconut oil might make it less apt to induce reactive hypoglycemia (also more fattening).I like powdered cocoa, a banana, fresh orange juice, some coconut milk, all mixed. Some water is needed also. It's delicious. Unfortunately it induces reactive hypoglycemia if consumed on a regular basis, so I can't have it often.
Some coconut oil might make it less apt to induce reactive hypoglycemia (also more fattening).