Effects of cocoa‐enriched diet on orofacial pain in a murine model

Abstract

Structured Abstract Objectives To investigate and discuss the effects of cocoa on orofacial pain. Setting and Sample Population The Department of Orthodontics at the University of Florida (UF). Male and female hairless rats (N=20/group) were tested. Materials and Methods Rats were tested using the Orofacial Pain Assessment Device (OPAD) before and after changing their food from the standard chow to a cocoa-enriched or control-equivalent diet. Results Male rats fed the cocoa diet had a significantly higher operant pain index when tested at 37°C as compared to control diet-fed animals. Female rats on the cocoa diet had a significantly higher pain index when tested at 18°C and 44°C, as compared to animals fed the control diet. Capsaicin-induced pain was inhibited, with cocoa-diet male rats having a significantly higher pain index than control-diet male rats and cocoa-diet female rats at both 37°C and 44°C. Cocoa-diet female rats had a significantly higher pain index at 44°C than control-diet females. Mechanical sensitivity was affected following capsaicin cream, with a significantly decreased tolerated bottle distance in both cocoa- and control-diet animals, but there was no difference between cocoa- and control-diet groups. Conclusion Using the OPAD operant system, we demonstrated that a diet rich in cocoa was effective in inhibiting neurogenic inflammatory pain in rats. This has implications for the use of novel alternative therapies such as diet modification for pain control.

Chocolate intake and muscle pain sensation: A randomized experimental study

“…Previous studies have suggested chocolate as a complement to the traditional medical treatment of pain by inhibiting induced neurogenic inflammatory responses. However, these studies examined the effect of chocolate by using a neurogenic pain model on rats and not in intramuscularly induced pain in humans [ 36 , 37 ]. In this present study, the pain reducing effect could not be fully attributed to the anti-inflammatory effects of cocoa, as found in a study showing that certain flavanols regulate the anti-inflammatory cytokine levels of IL-4 and TGF-β [ 36 ].…”

“…It has also been found that a cocoa-enriched diet inhibits neurogenic inflammatory pain in rats, which implies the possible use of cocoa as an alternative therapy for pain control in humans [ 37 ]. There are indications that the type of chocolate (e.g., percentage of cocoa solids) plays an important role regarding its effect on sensory experiences [ 34 ].…”

Pharmacological Characterization of Orofacial Nociception in Female Rats Following Nitroglycerin Administration

“…An example of the data collected is presented in Figure 1C . The use of the OPAD assay has been described extensively in our previous publications ( Neubert et al, 2005 ; Neubert et al, 2006 ; Neubert et al, 2007 ; Neubert et al, 2008 ; Rossi and Neubert, 2008 ; Rossi et al, 2009 ; Caudle et al, 2010 ; Kumada et al, 2012 ; Nolan et al, 2011 ; Anderson et al, 2012a ; Anderson et al, 2012b ; Nolan et al, 2012 ; Ramirez and Neubert, 2012 ; Rossi et al, 2012 ; Anderson et al, 2013 ; Mustafa et al, 2013 ; Anderson et al, 2014 ; Anderson et al, 2015 ; Ramirez et al, 2015 ; Bowden et al, 2017 ; Caudle et al, 2017 ).…”

“…The hypothesis tested was that agents that can abort human migraine headaches would disrupt nitroglycerin induced headaches in rats. The advantages of the OPAD testing system are that 1) it assesses nociception in trigeminal nerve territories, which is more relevant to migraine than limb sensitivity; 2) data collection is automated so that investigator bias is reduced; 3) the assay utilizes a behavior that is suppressed by pain so that effective analgesics restore the behavior; thus, sedation or motor impairment do not register as analgesic effects; 4) the assay utilizes a rodent initiated behavior rather than an investigator evoked behavior which reduces the impact of rodent hypervigilance; and 5) the assay is an operant reward/conflict type of assay that quantifies the full experience of the pain including the nociceptive, and cognitive/emotional elements of the experience rather than measuring a simple reflex arc ( Neubert et al, 2005 ; Neubert et al, 2006 ; Rossi et al, 2006 ; Neubert et al, 2007 ; Neubert et al, 2008 ; Rossi and Neubert, 2008 ; Rossi et al, 2009 ; Caudle et al, 2010 ; Kumada et al, 2012 ; Nolan et al, 2011 ; Nolan et al, 2012 ; Ramirez and Neubert, 2012 ; Rossi et al, 2012 ; Anderson et al, 2013 ; Mustafa et al, 2013 ; Anderson et al, 2014 ; Ramirez et al, 2015 ; Bowden et al, 2017 ; Caudle et al, 2017 ; Sapio et al, 2018 ). By evaluating agents that are effective in the acute clinical management of migraine headache in humans in this rat nitroglycerin model the validity of the model was tested.…”

Anti-Inflammatory and Anti-Nociceptive Effects of Cocoa: A Review on Future Perspectives in Treatment of Pain

“…Furthermore, it has recently been observed that the activation of trigeminal neurons and the expression of proteins involved in nociception in the ganglion and spinal cord were inhibited by cocoa [5,6]. A study conducted by Bowden et al [6] showed an inhibition of neurogenic inflammatory orofacial pain in rats fed with a diet rich in cocoa.…”