The Most Depressing News of the Week - Chocolate makes you depressed!

This must truly be the Most Depressing News of the Week: Eating chocolate makes you depressed.

So says an article in this week's Wall Street Journal, reporting on a study conducted by a professor of medicine at the University of California at San Diego. For those of you who missed it, below is the text of the article:
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APRIL 27, 2010
Eating Chocolate Is Linked To Depression
By JENNIFER CORBETT DOOREN

People who eat more chocolate are more likely to be depressed than people who eat less chocolate, a new study has found.

What isn't clear, though, is whether people who were more likely to be depressed ate more chocolate in the study—or whether chocolate itself is linked to depression.

"It's possible chocolate has antidepressant effects and that's why they are eating chocolate," said Beatrice Golomb, one of the study's researchers and an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego. "I think many of us believe chocolate consumption, at least in the short term, makes us feel better."

Some research has suggested that chocolate, made from the beans of cocoa trees, has health benefits such as lowering blood pressure. But there has been little research involving mood.

Dr. Golomb and her colleagues looked at 931 adults who weren't taking antidepressants and didn't have known cardiovascular disease or diabetes. (The same group of patients was being screened as part of separate research involving cholesterol-lowering drugs.) The results appear in this week's Archives of Internal Medicine.

Participants were asked about how many servings of chocolate they ate per week and then were screened for depression, using a questionnaire about mood, sleep and eating habits that doctors use to determine if a person might be depressed.

A depression-rating scale indicates whether a person should be referred to a psychiatrist for additional evaluation and possible treatment. Patients who score higher than a 16 on the scale are considered possibly depressed; those who score above 22 are considered likely to be depressed. People whose scores are 16 or less aren't considered depressed.

The study found that "possibly depressed" individuals, who scored above 16, ate 8.4 servings of chocolate per month. People who weren't depressed, scoring at or below 16, ate 5.4 servings of chocolate per month. Patients with scores higher than 22—or those most likely to be depressed—ate the most chocolate, with 11.8 servings a month.

It's possible that, "analogous to alcohol, there could be short-term benefits of chocolate to mood, with longer-term untoward effects," the researchers wrote in the published study.

Dr. Golomb says she is a regular chocolate eater who isn't depressed. "I tell all my patients: Chocolate is a vegetable," she says. She recommends moderate consumption of "real" chocolate—the kind with a high percentage of cocoa butter. A serving of chocolate is one ounce, slightly less than a chocolate bar. The study didn't differentiate between milk and dark chocolate.

Researchers looked at other foods the participants consumed, including fish, fruit and vegetables, and found no differences between people likely to be depressed and those unlikely to be depressed—suggesting their findings are specific to chocolate. Nor did coffee and other caffeine sources affect depression scores.

Dr. Golomb said the chocolate-depression findings were the same for men and women. Men made up about 70% of the study. Participants' average age was about 58. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health, and by the University of California, San Diego, funded the study.

Write to Jennifer Corbett Dooren at jennifer.corbett-dooren@dowjones.com