It’s good news for chocolate lovers (Image: Getty)
If you like a square or two of chocolate and you’re a woman over 45, then you may be in luck. According to researchers, consuming milk chocolate may be a “fat-burner in postmenopausal women” – but you need to eat at a specific time.
Whilst eating the sweet treat may not seem like the right way to shed the pounds, a study on postmenopausal women suggests that eating a concentrated amount within a limited morning time-frame could aid in fat burning and lowering blood sugar levels.
The published in The FASEB Journal is authored by Harvard Medical School professor of medicine Frank A.J.L. Scheer and Marta Garaulet – both of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders, Departments of Medicine and Neurology at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
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To investigate the impact of consuming milk chocolate at different times of the day, researchers teamed with investigators from the University of Murcia in Spain. They conducted a randomised, controlled, cross-over trial with 19 postmenopausal women, who consumed 100g of chocolate either in the morning—within an hour of waking—or at night—within an hour before bedtime.
The study looked at weight gain and various other factors compared to a no-chocolate intake condition. Findings suggest that neither the morning nor night consumption groups experienced weight gain.
Researchers reported that the study “suggests that chocolate, in the morning or in the evening/night, in a narrow window of time (1hr), results in differential effects on hunger and appetite, substrate oxidation, fasting glucose, microbiota composition and function, and sleep and temperature rhythms. The intake of a rather high amount of chocolate (100g) concentrated in a narrow (1hr) timing window in the morning could help to burn body fat and to decrease glucose levels in postmenopausal women”.
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To look at why volunteers of the study didn’t gain significant body weight, they “explored different aspects of energy intake and expenditure. Results show that chocolate reduced ad libitum energy intake, consistent with the observed reduction in hunger, appetite and the desire for sweets shown in previous studies.
“While the volunteers had an increase of energy intake due to chocolate’s extra calories (extra 542 kcal) as compared to the non-chocolate condition, they spontaneously reduced their ad libitum energy intake by 16% when eating chocolate in the morning.”
According to , Scheer said: “Our findings highlight that not only ‘what’ but also ‘when’ we eat can impact physiological mechanisms involved in the regulation of body weight.”
Garaulet added: “Our volunteers did not gain weight despite increasing caloric intake. Our results show that chocolate reduced ad libitum energy intake, consistent with the observed reduction in hunger, appetite and the desire for sweets shown in previous studies.”