Cocoa Supplements Don’t Stop Aging

The dubious claims about cocoa supplements and anti-aging potential

Pictured: Yum. Photo by Irene Kredenets on Unsplash

We love a good news story. There are few things in science that get everyone quite as excited as when a new study seems to show that something we thought was bad might actually be good for us. You see it at least once every few months for booze, coffee, and one of our collective faves, chocolate.

Everyone really loves chocolate.

This time, we’re specifically talking about cocoa extract. According to a range of headlines, taking cocoa extract may be able to help you fight aging. A pill filled with cocoa a day, and you might be able to stave off the terrible consequences of living past 60.

Sadly, the truth is far more banal. There’s very little reason to believe that these cocoa supplements can really fight aging.

The Science

The new study that’s hit the headlines is called Effects of 2-year cocoa extract supplementation on inflammaging biomarkers in older US adults: findings from the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study randomised clinical trial. This sounds wonderfully rigorous and scientific, but, well.

If you read the title, you’d be fooled into thinking that these are the results of a randomized…