Chocolate can boost people's memory and abstract thinking when they eat the sweet food at least once a week based on the findings of a new study. These benefits of making people smarter builds on past research that showed the popular snack food and dessert improves heart health, lowers risk of stroke and protects skin from the sun's harmful rays.

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The new study was published in the journal Appetite. It showed that people who ate chocolate a minimum of one time every week had a better memory and abstract thinking.  

Psychologist Merril Elias is a co-study leader. He told the Washington Post that the findings were important because they were related to many cognitive areas.

Elias started studying the cognitive skills of over 1,000 people in New York during the 1970s, according to Telegraph. He first focused on the connection between people's blood pressure and brain performance.

Then around 15 years ago Elias shifted his focus to the Maine-Syracuse Longitudinal Study (MSLS) by asking participants about the foods they were eating and their dietary habits.  

The study was held from 2001 and 2006. Georgina Crichton was the study leader and is a nutrition researcher at the University of South Australia.

Crichton used the study to study chocolate's effects on the brain by using a sample size of a little under 1,000 people.

Researchers studied the cognitive test scores of volunteers who ate chocolate less than once per week, and those who at it at least once per week. The weekly chocolate eaters had better brain function. They performed better at tasks such as remembering a phone number, or talking and driving simultaneously.

Researchers did a second test of 333 participants. They found that the study's results were not caused by smarter people eating more chocolate.  

The researchers are not sure why chocolate is linked to improved brain function, according to Chicago Tribune. In fact, Elias expected opposite results because he thought chocolate's added sugar content would cause thinking abilities to decrease.

However, scientists know that cocoa flavanols have a positive effect on human brains. The food also has plant-based compounds called methylxanthines that improve different human body functions including concentration.  

Here are some health benefits of chocolate: