LAUSANNE, Switzerland—Nestle recently conducted a study on chocolate’s role in metabolism and gut health. The study provided strong evidence that consuming 40 g/d of dark chocolate during a period of two weeks is sufficient to modify the metabolism of free living and healthy human subjects, as per variation of both host and gut microbial metabolism (J Proteome Res. 2010;8:5568-79). A clinical trial was performed on a population of 30 human subjects, who were classified in low- and high-anxiety traits using validated psychological questionnaires. NMR-citrate and MS-glycine-based metabonomics were employed to study global changes in metabolism due to the chocolate consumption.
Human subjects with higher anxiety trait showed a distinct metabolic profile indicative of a different energy homeostasis (lactate, citrate, succinate, trans-aconitate, urea, proline), hormonal metabolism (adrenaline, DOPA, 3-methoxy-tyrosine) and gut microbial activity (methylamines, p-cresol sulfate, hippurate). Dark chocolate reduced the urinary excretion of the stress hormone cortisol and catecholamines and partially normalized stress-related differences in energy metabolism (glycine, citrate, trans-aconitate, proline, beta-alanine) and gut microbial activities (hippurate and p-cresol sulfate).
