Dark Chocolate

Health Discovery

Go Over to the Dark Side. Of Chocolate, That Is

Weekly chocolate consumption helps heart

| If a little is good, then a lot is … worse?
That is the less-is-more conclusion of a new study of older Swedish women that found that eating high-quality chocolate once or twice a week is good for the heart, but eating it too much is not. A Nine year study.

Bitter Is Best

Cocoa beans are processed into cocoa solids and cocoa butter. The solids contain the antioxidants. The higher the percentage of cocoa content listed on a wrapper, the more antioxidants inside.
The purest commercial varieties, like unsweetened baking chocolate, taste bitter, 

Which means that most chocolate consumed contains sugar. Most ingredients added to chocolate raise its caloric and fat content and lower its antioxidants

Six Benefits of Dark Chocolate

At any age, recent studies have
shown, dark chocolate may:

1. Lower blood pressure by dilating blood vessels.
2. Reduce the risk of diabetes by reducing blood sugar and insulin.
3. Activate enzymes that eliminate cancer−causing carcinogens and mutagens.
4. Reduce the risk of blood clots and strokes by inhibiting the clumping of blood platelets.
5. Keep cholesterol levels stable or even slightly improve them.
6. Enhance cognitive function by increasing blood flow in the brain.

That doesn't mean American women need to eat twice as much dark chocolate to protect their hearts, cautions Linda Van Horn, professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. "Chocolate is not magical and does not work in isolation," she says. A diet that is high in fiber, fruits and vegetables, fish "and a little chocolate," she adds, is best for avoiding weight gain and preventing heart disease.


The study, published online this month in the journal Circulation: Heart Failure, was conducted by researchers from Harvard University and Sweden's Institute of Environmental Medicine. They looked at the heart failure rates of nearly 32,000 women who had filled out food consumption questionnaires as part of a Swedish mammography study.