Last week, newspapers around the world picked up on an obscure study that appeared to prove mice fed a chocolate derivative twice a day benefited from the same improvement in health as those sent for a vigorous session at the gym.
The study, published in the American Journal of Physiology, was conducted by Dr Moh H Malek, an associate professor of healthcare sciences at Wayne University's Institute of Gerontology.
No one's saying that astonishing discoveries can't come from unusual places, but headlines blaring: "Chocolate is as good for you as exercise," may slightly have overstated the case.
The study was carried out on two groups of mice. Both groups were fed epicatechin (a chemical in cocoa) twice a day. One group also had to run on a treadmill for half an hour a day. Both groups showed improved exercise performance, especially the middle-aged mice.
"Aerobic exercise, such as running or cycling, is known to increase the number of mitochondria in muscle cells," says Malek. "Our study found that epicatechin seems to bring about the same response, particularly in the heart and skeletal muscles."
He suggests that "epicatechin treatment combined with exercise could be a viable means to offset muscle ageing," but adds: "At the moment it would be a leap of faith to say the same effects would be seen in humans. But it is something we hope to identify in future studies."
That hardly merits the headlines, but would you have read an article entitled, "Can consumption of dark chocolate attenuate ageing-related muscular fatigue?" Probably not, and you can't blame anyone for wanting to believe a chocolate bar is equal to half an hour on the treadmill.
The US scientific establishment and the world press see merit in Malek's methods. But until he experiments on humans, we won't know how much dark chocolate we'd have to consume each day to improve our muscle tone. I, for one, am willing to be a subject.