On Monday, June 12th, our NBB class attended a chocolate workshop where we got to make our very own chocolates! I have always had a huge sweet tooth, and I was thrilled to be able to taste a variety of chocolates while exploring the museum before the workshop. Here are a few pictures of us:
Out of all the different kinds of chocolates (white, milk, unsweetened, semisweet, etc.), my favorite has always been dark chocolate mixed with some sort of fruit like raspberry. More than anything, I like the sweet but bitter smell of it. After reading an article in NBB 402 about the possible beneficial effects of cocoa flavanols on cognitive function (Karabay et al., 2018), I wanted to see if there was anything specific about dark chocolate that has allowed it to have the “healthiest” reputation among all the other chocolates.
Interestingly enough, Massolt et al. (2010) found that there was actually appetite suppression through merely smelling dark chocolate in the female residents tested. The change in appetite suppression was measured using a score on a visual analogue scale (VAS). The authors also measured the amount of ghrelin (commonly known as “the hunger hormone” because of its high activation when people are hungry) expression and found that this was correlated in the sample group that just smelled the dark chocolate but not the group that ate the chocolate. This study was very interesting, and I am curious to see if men would express the same levels of appetite suppression by smelling dark chocolate.
This study made me wonder if ghrelin plays a role in the brain since it appears to be able to help control the feeling of hunger suppression. After a quick PubMed search, it appears to play a large role! Specifically, ghrelin has the ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and induce increased neuronal activity in the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus (Stasi & Milani, 2016). This is super cool and reminds me of the major role hormones play in regulating homeostasis and other biological functions.
The chocolate workshop will definitely be one of my most enjoyable and memorable moments in Paris; it has allowed me to learn a new skill (how to make chocolate), have a full stomach (full of chocolate), and learn more about the role of chocolate, hunger hormones, and the brain. I can’t wait to visit more places with my NBB class.
References:
- Karabay, A., Saija, J. D., Field, D. T., & Akyürek, E. G. (2018). The acute effects of cocoa flavanols on temporal and spatial attention. Psychopharmacology, 235(5), 1497-1511. doi:10.1007/s00213-018-4861-4
- Massolt, E. T., Haard, P. M., Rehfeld, J. F., Posthuma, E. F., Veer, E. V., & Schweitzer, D. H. (2010). Appetite suppression through smelling of dark chocolate correlates with changes in ghrelin in young women. Regulatory Peptides, 161(1-3), 81-86. doi:10.1016/j.regpep.2010.01.005
- Stasi, C., & Milani, S. (2016). Functions of Ghrelin in Brain, Gut and Liver. CNS & Neurological Disorders – Drug Targets, 15(8), 956-963. doi:10.2174/1871527315666160709203525