Can cocoa extract really prevent Altzheimers disease?

New reseatch claims that cocoa extract may help prevent age-related cognitive disorders like Alzheimer's disease. 

The micronutrients found in chocolate – known as polyphenols – were studied by Dr. Giulio Maria Pasinetti and colleagues. Their data suggests there's evidence to support the development of a cocoa extract as a natural remedy to maintain and promote brain health, especially age-related neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer's disease. The cocoa polyphenols are believed to reduce the production and build-up of beta-amyloid and tau proteins that have been linked to Alzheimer's disease.

The health benefits of chocolate have also been explored in previous studies, highlighting its protective power against heart disease, gas and bloating ​and a means of replenishing oxidative stress related to muscle fatigue.

I think that this piece of research is extremely interesting as I am very interested in diseases/disorders of the brain. I find brain cognition to be a fascinating subject and looking into all the connections and different functions of the brain.

The Bystander Effect

The bystander effect is the belief that the more people to witness a scene, such as a murder or crash, the less likely any one individual is to do anything about it. 

In 1964 a woman called Kitty Genovese was murdered in New York in front of numerous amounts of people, of which only one of the bystanders shouted to the murderer "leave her alone". 

Psychologists decided to test this theory. The psychologists were John Darley and Bibb Latane. 

They used an actor to pretend that they were having a life-threatening seizure, of which the participants could not see but could hear them, like Milgram's obedience study. They found that the results were very similar to the Kitty Genovese case. The more people aware that the person is in need of help,  the less likely they are to do anything about it. 

My Opinion

I believe this to be very true. When there is a big group of people, you naturally assume that out of all the people around you, somebody else would have done/ being doing something to help the person in need. However, if this is what everybody thinks then eventually nobody will help the person, which could result in severe consequences like the Kitty Genovese case. 

Elderly related words provoke slow walk

An experiment in 1996 by John Bargh et Al investigated whether exposing people to words portrayed as being old would effect the participants behaviour - walking. They found that because the participants were exposed to these elderly words, they subsequently walked away from the laboratory more slowly and elderly-like. This experiment is related to 'social priming' which means we are much more susceptible to influence than we realise. The study has been attempted again on different occasions and some have been unsuccessful in finding any results similar to the original, where as others have been successful in finding similar results. This has caused much debate and disagreement over whether the results found in John Bargh et Al's research has any significance or validity at all.