Molecular Neurobiology laboratory, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biomedicine, Faculty of Biology, Universitat de Barcelona, Diagonal 643, Prevosti Building, 08028, Barcelona, Spain.
CiberNed, Network Center for Neurodegenerative diseases, National Spanish Health Institute Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
BMC Psychiatry. 2023 Jun 7;23(1):411. doi: 10.1186/s12888-023-04662-7.
Theobromine is an abundant methylxanthine in cocoa/chocolate. A recent article in BMC Psychiatry concludes that theobromine consumption increases the risk of depression. In our opinion, it is difficult to make a correlation between dietary habits and the risk of depression, the diagnosis of which is not simple to make. Also, it is not easy to assess the amount of theobromine because it varies from one brand of chocolate to another and/or depending on the percentage of cocoa it has. Assuming that there is a correlation, we postulate that the conclusion may be the opposite, that is, that depressed individuals benefit from the intake of products containing theobromine. Since some antidepressant drugs alter the craving for sweet products, it would be interesting to try to correlate the data on theobromine intake with the kind of therapy used in depressed individuals.
可可/巧克力中含有丰富的甲基黄嘌呤——可可碱。最近 BMC 精神病学的一篇文章得出结论称，可可碱的摄入会增加患抑郁症的风险。在我们看来，很难将饮食习惯与抑郁症风险联系起来，因为抑郁症的诊断并不简单。此外，由于可可碱的含量因巧克力品牌而异，或者取决于可可的含量，因此评估可可碱的摄入量也不容易。假设存在相关性，我们推测结论可能相反，即抑郁个体从摄入含有可可碱的产品中受益。由于一些抗抑郁药物会改变对甜食的渴望，因此尝试将可可碱摄入量的数据与抑郁个体使用的治疗方法相关联将是一件有趣的事情。
