Study reveals two drinks that protect body against stress and eating fatty foods

A study has revealed how two different drinks can help your body reset after stress and eating junk food.

The approaching festive season can be a stressful time of year and with plenty of unhealthy junk food on the shelves, it can certainly be a time of indulgence.

Thankfully, a new study has found that flavanol-rich drinks, such as cocoa and green tea, can help protect your cardiovascular system when it’s stressed and you turn to fatty foods.

“We know that when people are stressed, they tend to gravitate towards high-fat foods,” lead study author Catarina Rendeiro, an assistant professor in nutritional sciences at the University of Birmingham, explained. “We have previously shown that fatty food can impair the body’s vascular recovery from stress.”

In their research, Rendeiro and the team wanted to see whether adding a high-flavanol food with a fatty meal would help reduce the effect of stress.

“Flavanols are a type of compound that occur in different fruits, vegetables, tea and nuts including berries and unprocessed cocoa,” explained Rosalind Baynham, another of the study’s authors. “Flavanols are known to have health benefits, particularly for regulating blood pressure and protecting cardiovascular health.”

For breakfast, the team gave a group of healthy young adults two croissants with salted butter and one-and-a-half slices of cheddar cheese, along with either a high-flavanol or a low-flavanol drink of cocoa.

iStock

After being allowed to rest, the group were tasked with completing a stressful maths test that was consistent with the level of stress they might experience in daily life.

They answered as many questions as they could in eight minutes while researchers measured blood flow and oxygen levels in their brains and also assessed their risk of heart disease.

Results showed that those who consumed fatty foods with low-flavanol drinks experienced reduced circulatory system function while mentally stressed, with the effects lasting 90 minutes after the stress-inducing episode.

In addition, blood flow among those who had the high-flavanol cocoa was significantly better compared with those who had the low-flavanol version.

Oxygen delivery to the brain and mood was unaffected by the flavanols.

“This research shows that drinking or eating a food high in flavanols can be used as a strategy to mitigate some of the impact of poorer food choices on the vascular system,” Rendeiro said. “This can help us make more informed decisions about what we eat and drink during stressful periods.”

Sign up for our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings