IN TODAY'S world, chocolates are probably synonymous with diabetes or obesity.
This is mainly due to their notorious reputation against a healthy lifestyle.
But is it true that things were the exact opposite around 500 years ago when chocolates were prescribed by health practitioners, not as bribes for the kids, but as a prescription?
Verdict:
TRUE
For as long as chocolate has existed, people have believed in its medicinal benefits. Chocolates have been used in medicine since at least the 1500s.
The Florentine Codex, compiled by a priest named Bernardino de Sahagún in 1590, mentioned the Aztecs brewing drinks from cacao mixed with other ingredients to treat numerous illnesses.
Written in 1552, the Badianus Manuscript lists a host of ailments cacao-based remedies could treat, including angina, fatigue, dysentery, gout, haemorrhoids and even dental problems.
The Aztecs used cacao to mask the unsavoury flavours of other medicinal ingredients used to make various potions to treat fever, blood in the urine, skin rashes, fever and seizures.
Maya dignitaries introduced chocolate to Spain in 1552. Not long after being imported as a food, it gained a reputation as a drug.
In the late 1500s and 1600s, Western doctors experimented with chocolate as a treatment for many of the same conditions it had been used for in the Americas.
These include chest pain, fevers, stomach problems, kidney issues and fatigue.
Some scholars in the 1700s noted the potential for chocolate eaters to gain weight, citing potential for convalescing patients such as when incorporated into smallpox treatments.
In 1796, one scholar argued that chocolate could delay the growth of white hair. In 1864, Auguste Debay described a chocolate concoction used to treat syphilis.
Chocolate was also cited as a part of a treatment regimen for a measles outbreak in 19th-century Mexico.
As it was used to treat so many illnesses historically, the question is; Did it actually work?
Modern day scholars say it's probably more serendipitous than anything.
In many cases, chocolate concoctions were heated, sometimes boiled, before drinking. By simply heating the liquid, drinkers may have unknowingly killed microbial pathogens.
As for the nutritional content of cacao itself, studies suggested that the flavonoid compounds in unprocessed dark chocolate may reduce risks from clogged arteries and increase blood circulation.
Unfortunately, since the mid-1800s, chocolate makers have bee removing dark chocolate’s acidity — and its flavonoids - in a process called Dutching to improve it's flavour.
They also began adding cocoa butter, dairy and sugar to make the chocolate bars we know and love today.
Despite this, a 2006 study found that eating a little chocolate could have a similar effect to taking an aspirin.
But that doesn't mean you should take chocolate bars instead of medicines when you're sick because the only thing it will cure is probably your cravings.
REFERENCE:
1. https://cocoarunners.com/chocopedia/chocolate-history-of-medicine/
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3708337/
3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25989318/
4. https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/food-facts/history-of-chocolate4.htm
