UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Cocoa may be the dark horse in the race against obesity, according to researchers at Penn State. Nearly one in three adults are overweight and more than two in five have obesity in the U.S., both conditions that come with inflammation-related health concerns. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has awarded a research team, led by Joshua Lambert, professor of food science in the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences, a three-year, $650,000 grant to continue their work studying the effects of dietary cocoa on the gut health of mice by characterizing the sex-specific beneficial effects of cocoa against obesity-related inflammation and fatty liver disease.

“Research from our laboratory and others have shown that dietary cocoa can mitigate obesity-related inflammation and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease,” Lambert said. “The effects are related to improved gut health.”

Lambert’s research team previously published a paper in The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry showing significant differences in the response of obese mice to dietary cocoa based on sex. Obese male mice had higher levels of inflammation than female mice but showed greater improvements with cocoa treatment. 

Prior studies by other researchers have reported that sex and sex hormones can impact development of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and other co-morbidities of obesity, Lambert pointed out. The smaller effects of cocoa in female mice may be because the females had less inflammation in the first place, perhaps because of estrogen, he explained. Given that sex hormones change with stage of life, he suggested, there is a need to understand how they might interact with dietary cocoa.

“Based on this, we hypothesize that dietary cocoa mitigates inflammation and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease in obese mice in a sex-specific manner, and that the influence of sex hormones on the composition of the gut microbiome and mammalian signaling pathways drive these differences in biological response,” he said.

The researchers plan to identify, document and characterize the sex-specific beneficial effects of cocoa against obesity-related inflammation and fatty liver disease. Additionally, they said they hope to characterize the role of the gut microbiome — the ecosystem of microbes that live in the intestines — in mediating the sex-specific effects of cocoa against obesity-related inflammation and liver disease.

“These studies will provide greater insight into the anti-inflammatory and protective activity of cocoa, and the impact of sex as moderator,” Lambert said. “These data will support the development of personalized nutritional approaches and novel products containing cocoa to improve human health.”

Andrew Neilson, associate professor in the Plants for Human Health Institute and the Department of Food, Bioprocessing, and Nutrition at North Carolina State University, is a member of the research team.