Whenever a story appears about a particular type of food, it tends to fall into one of two categories: Either it is bad for you, and its consumption should be limited or avoided altogether, or it is beneficial to our overall health.

Over the years, chocolate has flittered between the two camps. Sure, strictly speaking, it is bad for you – no respected health professional is going to propose a chocolate-heavy diet – but there are some positives to having an occasional bite in moderation.

Now, however, there appears to be definitive proof that chocolate does actually help boost brainpower.

Some forty-years-ago, the New York-based psychologist Merrill Elias began noting the cognitive abilities of over 1,000 people in New York State. This study did not begin with the intention of morphing into a large-scale investigation into the power of our favoured sweet treat but that is exactly what happened.

After monitoring the relationship between blood pressure and brain performance, Elias and his team had a ‘eureka!’ moment.

They had already gleaned that people’s diets were affecting their results, so they decided to delve deeper.

Starting in 2001, twenty-five years into their research, they added a new questionnaire. The answers revealed an interesting pattern.

Elias picks up the tale: “We found that people who eat chocolate at least once a week tends to perform better cognitively.

“It is significant,” he added.

The findings piqued the interest of Georgina Crichton, a nutrition research based at the University of South Australia, and Ala’a Alkerwi, an epidemiologist at the Luxembourg Institute of Health.

Together, they compared various scores and found ‘significant positive associations’ between chocolate consumption and cognitive performance. Performance that translates to everyday tasks like “remember a phone number, [your] shopping list, or being able to do two things at once.”

“It is nearly impossible to talk about causality with our design,” says Elias, “but our study definitely indicates the direction is that chocolate consumption affects cognitive ability.”

The problem is nobody can explain why.

However, there are a number of possible theories that are yet to be validated. One idea is that chocolate increases blood flow to the brain, which in turn helps improve performance and cognitive ability. Another hypothesis revolves around the notion that plant-produced compounds called methylxanthines play apart. But nobody really knows at the moment.

There is more work to be done, though.

“We didn’t look at dark chocolate and lighter chocolate separately,” Elias pointed out to the Washington Post, alluding to areas for further research.

“That could tell us a lot more about what is going on. We also only looked at people who were eating chocolate never or rarely versus once a week or more.

“I’d really like to see what happens when people eat a ton of chocolate…”

And with Easter in the books, this news could not have arrived at a better time.

Just remember, eat your chocolate eggs in moderation – if you have any left that is!