CHOCOLATE "ADDICTION'' A FICTION?

NEW YORK, Dec 16 (Reuters Health) s The much-touted marijuana-like
properties of chocolate may not contribute to chocolate cravings after all,
findings from an Italian study suggest.

Analyzing milk and cocoa, researchers found they do contain substances that
mimic marijuana's effects, but not enough to have psychoactive effects.
However, in their report in the journal Nature, the research team recommend
studies to determine if low doses of these substances can affect behavior
"before the relevance of these compounds to the purported mild rewarding
and craving-inducing effects of cocoa can be dismissed.''

In previous and widely-publicized studies, scientists reported that cocoa
contains anandamide, a pleasure-inducing compound produced in the brain,
and 2-arachidonoylglycerol (2-AG) and N-acylethanolamines (NAEs),
substances that further mimic marijuana by enhancing anandamide's effects.

After analyzing milk and cocoa separately, Dr. Vincenzo Di Marzo of the
Istituto per la Chimica di Molecale di Interesse Biologico in Naples and
colleagues confirm that both cocoa and milk contain anandamide, NAEs, 2AG,
and a similar substance called oleamide.

But neither milk nor cocoa appear to contain enough of these substances to
produce marijuana-like effects, they write. Stomach acids break down most
of the compounds before they reach the blood stream, according to the
researchers.

But in a reply also published this week in Nature, the researchers who
previously reported finding NAEs and related substance in cocoa, criticize
the Italian study. Among other things, Di Marzo and colleagues failed to
test the concentrations of all the NAEs found in cocoa, Dr. Massimiliano
Beltramo and Dr. Daniele Piomelli of the University of California at
Irvine, argue.

Ultimately, both groups of researchers leave open the possibility that
chocolate may contain addictive compounds.

"This substance remains, in R. J. Huxtable's apt words, 'more than a food
but less than a drug,''' write Beltramo and Piomelli.

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson