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Myths, Part 1 Print E-mail


Chocolate has been a scapegoat for a long time. Though most of its history is as a health food, periodically chocolate is seized on as a source of society's ills, whether for "inciting the venereal passions" or causing apathy, indolence, or even revolutionary foment! Of course, all the same accusations have been leveled at coffee and tea, too. Rare is the exotic food that hasn't been pegged as an aphrodisiac at some point, usually with as little evidence as there is in the case of chocolate.

Following America's long Puritan tradition of believing that anything that feels really good must somehow be bad for you, we have ascribed a variety of ills to chocolate consumption. From acne and allergies to migraines and cavities, we have always found reasons to convince ourselves that we shouldn't indulge in chocolate. Most of these beliefs are built on surprisingly flimsy evidence.

Acne

This is a biggie. Thousands of teenagers every year are still told to lay off the Snickers if they want those blackheads to disappear. Yet study after study has found no link between acne and food of any kind. The American Academy of Dermatologists unequivocally states that acne is not caused by diet, poor hygiene, or stress. Acne is triggered by surging testosterone levels during puberty. (Yes, girls have testosterone, too, just less of it than boys.) The surging hormones cause the oil glands in the skin to enlarge, pump out more oil, and become infected, and pizza-face is the unfortunate result. No matter how much you avoid chocolate, fat, sugar, carbohydrates, or anything else, you aren't going to be influencing this process. The best way to deal with normal acne is simply to wash your face a couple of times a day with mild soap and water.

It is interesting how long ago the myth of chocolate's connection to acne was dispelled, yet how prevalent it still is. As far back as the 1960s, researchers had shoveled piles of chocolate into willing teens and failed to trigger any acne outbreaks. Other studies throughout the 1970s and 1980s also failed to establish any role of chocolate in acne production. Today, no serious dieticians or dermatologists pay any attention to chocolate in their battle against acne. But myths die hard, and it may be decades before this particular one finally peters out.

Allergies

A lot of people seem to believe they're allergic to everything. How many people do you know who suddenly discovered they are allergic to dairy? Or wheat? Or soy? Most of these people do not have true allergies. What they likely have is food intolerance, a different and milder condition. Experts believe that only about 2 percent of adults have a true food allergy, which results when the body's immune system mistakes a protein from a food for an invading germ. When this happens, histamines are produced to fight the "invaders," and these histamines are responsible for the itchy throat, runny nose, upset stomach, and watery eyes of classic allergy symptoms. At extreme levels, the body's attack on the "invaders" can be so over-the-top that the throat closes.

Food intolerance is milder, and more common. There is no immune response, but the individual may have trouble digesting a type of food due to various reasons, such as low levels of a particular enzyme.

While most so-called wheat and dairy allergies are actually food intolerances, there are a few foods that tend to produce deadly serious allergies, peanuts and shellfish among them. Chocolate, however, is not one of these foods.

People who claim to be allergic to chocolate usually don't show any symptoms of their allergies under controlled conditions. In one study, 81 people who believed they had chocolate allergies were fed chocolate, and only 10 produced symptoms. These 10 participated in a double-blind study, and only 3 developed allergic symptoms. In another study, 20 people with "chocolate allergies" were fed capsules containing either cocoa powder (equivalent to that in an average candy bar) or a placebo. Only one seemed to have a true chocolate allergy.

ADHD

Although no one claims that chocolate is directly related to Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), chocolate does have sugar in it, and children particularly like chocolate, so the guilt-by-association between chocolate and "hyperactivity" is an old one. Almost all studies on ADHD, however, show no link to sugar consumption. Of twelve double-blind studies conducted between 1984 and 1994, only one showed any link between ADHD and sugar. Ten showed no link, and one showed a reduced rate of ADHD with increased sugar consumption. New information is coming to light that may point to a link between exposure to television and computer screens as an infant and ADHD. If you are worried about your child's behavior, look to his TV, not his hot chocolate.


 
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