... CHOCOLATE REALLY CAN MAKE YOU SNEEZE

CHOCOLATE-INDUCED sneezing sounds like a music hall joke, and only once in my practice have I come across this — yet I have received any number of readers’ letters describing it.

When I spoke to colleagues at the nose clinic at the Royal Brompton Hospital in London, all agreed that the sneeze response is not due to allergy but is a variant of what is called photic sneezing, which strikes some people when they look up at the sun — in other words, it’s a reflex.

There was also a theory that the phenomenon might be due to compounds called flavonoids in the chocolate stimulating the production of nitric oxide in the nasal blood vessels. This encourages the vessels to widen and the vascular nasal lining might be stimulated by the chocolate, resulting in a bout of sneezing.

I am sure those who write in would be staggered by the level of fascination their letters stimulate in some of our leading medical scientists!