Science Check
Is Chocolate an Aphrodisiac? What Science Says
The claim
In The Apothecary Diaries, Maomao is asked to prepare a cocoa-based confection "with aphrodisiac properties", in other words chocolate meant to rekindle desire. Does chocolate deserve its old reputation as an aphrodisiac?
Detailed verdict
| Sub-claim | Verdict |
|---|---|
| Le chocolat (cacao) possède de véritables propriétés aphrodisiaques physiologiques | False |
| Le cacao contient des molécules psychoactives (théobromine, caféine, phényléthylamine) | Confirmed |
| Ces molécules sont présentes à des doses suffisantes pour agir sur le désir sexuel | False |
What the real science says
Cocoa is not an inert food. It contains several psychoactive substances, first among them theobromine, a cousin of caffeine, along with a little caffeine itself and phenylethylamine, a molecule sometimes nicknamed the “love molecule” because the brain releases it in certain states of excitement. On paper, the case looks solid: stimulants, a pleasure-related molecule, and a food that brings real comfort. That is the basis the reputation was built on.
The problem is quantity. The theobromine in a serving of chocolate has a mild stimulant effect, comparable to weak coffee, with no bearing on sexual desire. As for phenylethylamine, the decisive point is that it is almost entirely destroyed by the liver and gut before it can reach the brain: the amount in chocolate has no chance of acting on mood or libido. And when researchers looked for a link between chocolate consumption and sexuality, they did not find one: the reference study, conducted among women in northern Italy, shows no difference in sexual function once the participants’ age is taken into account.
In other words, the right molecules are there, but at doses too low, and some are destroyed before they can act. The intense pleasure of eating chocolate and the reputation itself are enough to explain the perceived effect: a powerful expectation effect, what science calls a placebo, not a pharmacological action.
Why The Apothecary Diaries makes this choice
Chocolate has dragged a sulfurous reputation behind it for centuries, born in Spanish chronicles about the Aztec court and nurtured all the way to European salons. The story uses it deftly: the cocoa confection ordered from Maomao is a precious, rare product reserved for an elite, exactly the kind of object people readily credit with special powers. Commissioning an “aphrodisiac” confection is therefore historically believable: that is precisely how the myth actually worked.
And that is what makes the claim so convincing: chocolate is a real pleasure carrying real molecules. Pharmacology is nonetheless clear: at the doses we eat it, chocolate has no demonstrated aphrodisiac effect. Its power lies in its taste, its rarity at the time, and the idea people have of it, which, within the story, is more than enough to produce its effect.
Going further
- 📚 Chocolate: Food or Drug? (Bruinsma and Taren, 1999): the reference review on chocolate’s real and supposed effects.
- 🔗 Can you become immune to poison through exposure?: the series’ other big pharmacological claim, put to the test.
Sources
- A. Salonia et al., Chocolate and Women’s Sexual Health: An Intriguing Correlation: The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2006, no association between chocolate and sexual function after adjusting for age.
- K. Bruinsma, D. L. Taren, Chocolate: Food or Drug?: Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 1999, cocoa’s active constituents, real doses and phenylethylamine bioavailability.
- Theobromine: Wikipedia, cocoa alkaloid, effects and doses.
- Aphrodisiac: Wikipedia, review of the evidence and the role of placebo.
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