Some food consumers may have been led to believe that eating chocolate particularly dark chocolate, which is considered healthier than milk chocolate, can help you lose weight because a study provided evidence that suggests so.   Does eating chocolate really help weight loss?  Maybe not.  The problem with the study led by a journalist with a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology of Bacteria is that it does not include enough participants for a valid conclusion.

Dr. Johannes Bohannon did not mean to publish a paper to advance his career or anything like that.   He wanted to prove a point that many publishers do not evaluate the intergrity of a study before reporting or publishing a study.  In many cases, scientific editors accepted his paper without asking a single question even though the study has severe limitations like its small size for the valid analysis.

Dr. Bohannon revealed in detail on his blog on May 27, 2015 how he fooled a couple dozen of scientific journals and hudrends of meadia outlets and millions of readers by publishing the bad study on chocolate and weight loss.  Many seemingly decent news outlets reported his problematic study.

No one knows for sure how many  studies of this sort - "chocolate helps weight loss" have been published in scientific journals and media outlets.  One thing for sure is the data, data presentation or conclusions from many published studies are not as trustworthy as thought.  According to a survey, close to 37% of researchers admitted that they twisted or altered data or data presentation. (David Liu)