In this post we want to share the final results of an important study already published, carried out by a group of researchers and which had the contribution of two of our products.
The aforementioned study is entitled “The acute effect of cocoa and red fruit polyphenols on retinal functions, such as visual acuity and cone-mediated adaptation to darkness in healthy eyes” and was carried out by researchers Maria Cinta Puell and Sonia de Pascual-Teresa from the CSIC.

Our contribution was clearly defining, as we were the suppliers of the material on which the study was based, cocoa, ORGANIC COCOA from SALENGEI and red fruits, ANTIOX ORGANIC Red Fruits from SALENGEI.

Background

Considering that polyphenolic flavonoids and anthocyanins have been shown to be beneficial for endothelial function and cerebral blood flow, an acute, randomized, controlled crossover trial was designed with two different sources of polyphenols: anthocyanins from berries and flavonoids from cocoa.

Among the most relevant points:

• The most important was to understand the effect of polyphenols on visual acuity (VA) and cone-mediated adaptation to darkness (DA).
• 40 healthy candidates between 18 and 27 years of age were selected.
  Due to scheduling issues, three candidates were unable to complete the study, so the result was based on the remaining 37.
• It was a randomized crossover study approved by the Ethics Committee of the San Carlos Clinical Hospital (CI 18/510-TFM_R_X) and by the Bioethics Committee of the CSIC (141/2018)
• The participants came to the observation site in three different groups where one consumed a drink with cocoa, another group drank one with red fruits and a third control, which in this case, consumed low-fat milk.
• It was observed that photopic visual acuity improved significantly after cocoa ingestion.
• Mesopic or low-luminance visual acuity and adaptation to darkness were not affected by either polyphenol diet.
• The improvement in photopic visual acuity could be attributed to flavonoids and theobromine.

What are polyphenols?

Polyphenols are non-nutritive food components with proven antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and vasoactive properties.
These properties have been the main basis for its use in the formulation of active food supplements for the eyes and their clinical use in recent years.

The physiology of vision and eye health are influenced by dietary factors on several levels.
Some of these factors influence blood flow and blood pressure at eye level, which will completely affect visual function.
In addition, dietary factors can affect the visual signal at the level of transduction, either in the activation of rhodopsin by the action of light or on its regeneration to return to its initial configuration.

Cocoa and berries are good sources of polyphenols in the human diet

Red berries are characterized by the presence of anthocyanins, a group of red-violet-blue flavonoids that have been associated with protection in endothelial inflammation.
Cocoa is rich in flavan-3-ols but also contains other polyphenols such as phenolic acids and flavonols.
In addition, cocoa is a good source of theobromine which is a methixanthin which, in contrast to caffeine, has a minor psychoactive effect and can lower blood pressure, while caffeine has been shown to increase it, depending on the person.

What are they for?

Polyphenols from cocoa and berries have been associated with protection against cardiovascular and neurological diseases in numerous studies.
Both processes are directly or indirectly involved in visual function, eye health and could justify some of the results showing an association between polyphenol consumption and an improvement in visual health.
In addition, vision is strongly affected by oxidative processes (the retina is a highly vascularized area with a large amount of unsaturated fatty acids), so those components of the diet capable of reaching that area of the body could protect the retina against this oxidation.

Studies have shown the potential of polyphenols in eye health

Some previous studies have shown the potential of polyphenols in eye health.
Although anthocyanin intake was long associated with an improvement in night vision in healthy individuals, most of the early clinical research reporting effects of anthocyanin on night vision did not employ a randomized, placebo-controlled design.
In contrast, subsequent reports showed that anthocyanins given in single or multiple oral doses had no effect on night vision in healthy eyes.
In subjects with myopia and asthenopia, treatment with high-dose purified anthocyanins (85mg) appears to improve subjective visual symptoms and contrast sensitivity measured under low-luminance conditions (mesopic conditions).

Other types of polyphenolic flavonoids, such as catechins and proanthocyanidins from grape seeds, have been shown to improve visual adaptation to low luminance and overall visual performance and have largely demonstrated an antioxidant and vasorelaxant effect at different tissue levels.
In healthy subjects, flavanol-rich cocoa induces peripheral vasodilation by activating the nitric oxide system.
Cocoa flavonoids improved spatial attention, reflected in reduced reaction time.
The effect of cocoa flavonoids on visual function has been little explored.
Recently, a short-term improvement in contrast sensitivity of lowercase letters or numbers and high-contrast visual acuity has been observed after consumption of dark chocolate.
In contrast, no short-term effects of flavanol-rich dark chocolate were observed on retinal blood flow automatically assessed on optical coherence tomography angiography (which measures vessel density) or subjective visual function (visual acuity and large-print contrast sensitivity).
To our knowledge, the effect of flavonoids on night vision has yet to be explored.

Conclusion

Based on the observations of the study “The acute effect of cocoa and red fruit polyphenols on retinal functions, such as visual acuity and cone-mediated dark adaptation in healthy eyes” of which, both SALENGEI BIO CACAO and SALENGEI ANTIOX BIO Red Fruits , both with excellent properties for health preservation.