Feeling blue? Have some dark chocolate

It’s a well known fact that if you’re feeling sad, down or blue then something sweet can give you a temporary boost, but a recent study has found that eating a small amount of dark chocolate every day could have a lasting positive effect on mood.

Researchers recruited 48 people and gave half of them about a square off dark chocolate, with a cocoa content of 70 or 85 per cent, three times a day for three weeks. The rest of the group had no chocolate at all.

The volunteers rated how strongly they were suffering from negative emotions such as feeling upset or irritable. These feelings were felt much less strongly in the group given the dark chocolate. The researchers concluded that the reduced negative emotions were linked to a greater abundance of a healthy gut bacteria called blautia.