Does Chocolate Cause Depression, or Do Depressed People Just Like It a Lot?
It seems like all these causal studies beg the question, is it the cart before the horse, or the horse before the cart? What I mean by this is, does the object that they say “causes” something in the human body or mind actually cause it, or are people who are drawn to the object just using it as a crutch or self medication because it makes them feel better, albeit temporarily.
Chocolate is one of my favorite foods. I’m not unlike millions of other women who feel the need to reach for their favorite velvety chocolate treat when they are either PMS’ing or are having troubles ranging from romantic to on the job issues. Chocolate sometimes really does “make it all better”. It’s been shown in some studies to release feel good chemicals into the blood stream, which helps to explain why some find chocolate so dang addictive. Myself included.
Chocolate, or the cocoa bean, is not in itself bad for you. It’s the fattening milk and sugar that is added to the cocoa bean to make it into what we know as pure bliss chocolate bars, pecan turtles and truffles that makes it bad for us, and makes it stick to our thighs. There are actually health benefits to dark chocolate. It’s rich in antioxidants and benefits the heart, but even that should only be eaten in moderation because of the sugar and fat content, and oh yeah, that little thing called calorie density.
Now, some research is pointing to the theory that depression and chocolate consumption may be related. Why? Because they found that those that ate chocolate more experienced feeling depressed substantially more than those who did not consume much chocolate or didn’t really like it at all (this is a totally foreign concept to me).
The thing is, it’s not clear whether depressed people just look for that instant pick me up that chocolate gives, and are using it to “self medicate”, or whether consuming the chocolate actually lends itself biochemically to imbalances in the human brain that contribute to depression, anxiety, etc. I know that when I put a piece of luscious chocolate in my mouth, it seems to solve my problems.
However, if I’m not careful and I over indulge, which it’s easy to do with chocolate, let’s face it, then I actually feel worse in the next hour or so after the sugar crash. Maybe this is the depression they’re referring to 
