Australia's Black Dog Institute, a non-profit educational and research institute with interest and expertise in the treatment and diagnosis of depression and bipolar disorder, has, via a study of 3,000 people, made a revolutionary discovery. Sort of. Of those in the study (all of whom demonstrated various symptoms associated with depression) 45% craved chocolate. The fact that women all over the world have known about chocolate staving off some of the symptoms of depression since some time in the mid-eighteenth century in no way diminishes the value of the study. Particularly because of that 45% who craved chocolate, 60% found that chocolate improved their mood if they indulged while depressed (that's 27% of the overall study participants, for those eating chocolate at home).

The researchers suspect the therapeutic effect of chocolate is because of the natural opioids in cacao, and the effect of chocolate on human endorphins. Yes, that's right opioids; the same class of pharmaceutical chemicals that gives us morphine. Our brains naturally produce a number of opioids; and chocolate seems to encourage our brains to release them, hence a euphoric feeling. (Yes, Virginia, there's a reason we talk about being addicted.) The truth of the matter is that researchers have determined that at least three of the several hundred distinct chemicals in chocolate stimulate the same receptors in our brains that tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, celebrated as the primary active chemical in marijuana, stimulate. Now, note: the researchers are not saying anything like chocolate is like pot, but there is a similar pleasure reaction happening in our brains.

Image Credit: Quinn Dombrowski