Does dark chocolate really help with menstrual cramps?
Rachael Davis
Featured Image Credit: Olga Rolenko/Getty Images
Period pain can be seriously debilitating, so naturally there are tonnes of old wives’ tales out there about making them less horrendous.
The hot water bottle trick can help to ease things, but there’s every chance the cramps will kick in when your trusty bottle isn’t to hand.
If so, necking some paracetamol and ibuprofen might take the edge off, but how about some dark chocolate?
It tastes considerably better than paracetamol, and the old wives would have it that it can help to right whatever’s wrong down there.
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But is there any truth to this one, or is it some ‘hair of the dog’ nonsense that’s coincidentally ‘worked’ for a few lucky cramp sufferers?
As it turns out, there might be a scientific basis for the claims that dark chocolate can reduce menstrual cramps.
Per Healthline, various studies have concluded that dark chocolate can offer some relief from menstrual cramps. One of those, conducted on 50 Indonesian boarding school kids, split the cohort into two groups. All participants were inside the first three days of their period during the study.
Group A was given dark chocolate to help soothe period cramps, while group B was given milk chocolate.
The study found that group A’s participants reported significantly less pain than they would typically expect, while group B’s said the milk chocolate made no difference.
Another study, this time involving 90 students in India, split the cohort into three groups. One third were given dark chocolate, the second third were given milk chocolate, and the remainder were a control group who were given neither.
In this study, the dark chocolate group again reported reduced pain, and the milk chocolate group was marginally better off than the control group who endured their period pain without a whiff of chocolate to take the edge off.
So, what’s going on here? Is it just in people’s heads, or is there a physical reason why dark chocolate seems to work?
Apparently, it’s a physical thing. Dark chocolate is surprisingly nutritious, and one nutrient in particular is thought to have an impact on the uterus shedding its lining during a period.
The body releases prostaglandins during periods which trigger uterine contractions – the source of period pain.
In dark chocolate, the magnesium content may help to relax the contracting muscles and thereby reduce the pain.
A 70-85% bar of dark chocolate contains around 15% of the recommended daily magnesium intake, which may explain why it helps to reduce period pains.
With that in mind, you might want to stock up on some dark chocolate ready for the next time your period pains strike. A 40-120g dose of dark chocolate is thought to be the sweet spot where its effects kick in.