From The "Duh" Files: Chocolate and Depression Linked! Who Woulda Thunk It?

Shocking, shocking news on CNN's website today: a study has shown that depressed people eat chocolate! Who knew?

Most of us who reach for the Hersheys, I would guess.

You can read the startling news for yourself here.

According to the study, researchers are beginning to wonder whether chocoholics eat chocolate because they're depressed or whether chocolate consumption and the crash that follows can actually cause depression. It's a chicken-or-the-egg debate, and I, for one, don't really care for this to be investigated further.

Because depression and I are frenemies who go way back, and because I simply MUST have a piece or two or seven of chocolate every day or become a cranky/crankier beyotch, I don't really want to know if it has maybe caused my depression all these years. Besides, I am pretty sure I can look at the gene pool I'm swimming in and know where my serotonin issues come from.

Even if it were revealed that chocolate consumption causes depression, I refuse to stop. I would dare say that if it were someday revealed that daily chocolate consumption knocks five years off your lifespan, I still think I would risk it. What good would five extra years be if I couldn't enjoy them with Lindor truffles or my new fave, Ruth Hunt Blue Monday bars?

Why would I stop consuming something that causes me so much joy? (Asked the daughter of two nearly-lifelong smokers.) And how can something that causes me so much joy make me depressed? Just because I got inexplicably blue today an hour or so after eating a Kit-Kat doesn't mean that daily crash attributes to my mental state; I totally blame that on the prednisone I'm on to treat what appears to be a recurring viral infection causing inflammation of the inner ear and vestibular nerve. (That's what the ENT thinks is causing my vertigo; fingers crossed he's right and I can walk a straight line again someday.)

So, bring on the Snickers, the Special Darks, the Ghiradelli. The M & Ms, the Reese's Cups, and the occasional Frisch's hot fudge cake. It can't be wrong when it feels so right.

Are you with me? Are you perhaps a chocoholic? What adverse health effect would chocolate have to have before you would willingly give it up?