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THE chocoholic鈥檚 dark secret is out. Certain chemicals in a bar of
chocolate may appeal to the same part of the brain as cannabis, say researchers
in California.

Danielle Piomelli and her colleagues at the Neurosciences Institute in San
Diego have discovered a group of chemicals in chocolate 鈥渨hose main target may
be the endogenous cannabinoid system of the brain鈥�.

Piomelli and her colleagues found three chemicals in chocolate which belong
to a group known as the unsaturated N-acylethanolamines. These are very
similar to a fatty brain chemical called anandamine which is known to latch onto
cannabis receptors in the brain and mimic the drug鈥檚 effects. The team failed to
detect the same chemicals in either white chocolate, a milk and cocoa-butter
concoction, or in coffee.

Writing in this week鈥檚 Nature, Piomelli says: 鈥淥ur results
demonstrate that cocoa powder and chocolate contain three unsaturated N
-acylethanolamines that could act as cannabinoid mimics.鈥�

The researchers say that the chemicals could either act directly, by
activating the cannabis receptors, or indirectly, by increasing the levels of
anandamine in the brain.

So, is a bar of chocolate a passport to the high life? According to the
researchers: 鈥淔urther experiments are necessary to determine whether the
concentrations of unsaturated N-acylethanolamines measured in our study
are sufficient to produce these biological effects in vivo.鈥�