Chocolate soothes the caffeine shakes - study

Mocha coffee (Getty)
Chocolate and caffeine belong together (Getty)

Want the coffee kick, but not the caffeine shakes? As it often is, chocolate's what you're looking for.

A year-long study in New York has found it reduces the anxiety-producing effects of caffeine.

"It was a really fun study," said Clarkson University researcher Ali Boolani, unsurprisingly.

"Cocoa increases cerebral blood flow, which increases cognition and attention. Caffeine alone can increase anxiety. This particular project found that cocoa lessens caffeine's anxiety-producing effects - a good reason to drink mocha lattes."

Prof Boolani believes the findings show mochas are a good choice for students "and anyone else who needs to improve sustained attention".

"I'll be doing some related and follow-up studies at Clarkson to look at differences in natural vs synthetic caffeine, and other cocoa studies. I'm excited about them."

Previous research has found chocolate could reduce heart disease, improve your memory and even help you win you a Nobel Prize.

The catch is the research was funded by candy conglomerate Hershey's, which obviously has a vested interest in getting people to eat more chocolate. So perhaps take your mocha with a pinch of salt.

The findings were published in journal BMC Nutrition.

Newshub.