Chocolate - Yes or No

Filed in archive General Health on July 7, 2007

Is chocolate good for you? Is chocolate bad for you? It's an ongoing controversy. According to Ivanhoe's Medical Breakthroughs, eating dark chocolate may have be beneficial:

Flavanol-rich cocoa has been associated with lowered blood pressure for quite some time now, but researchers from the University Hospital of Cologne in Germany were concerned the high amounts of fat and sugar in calorie-rich cocoa would cancel out the cardiovascular benefits. To find out more about the blood pressure benefits of cocoa, researchers randomly assigned 44 adults with untreated upper-range hypertension or stage 1 hypertension to one of two groups: the dark chocolate group or the white chocolate group. Participants in the dark chocolate group had 30 calories of polyphenol-rich dark chocolate each day, while participants in the white chocolate group were given 30 calories of polyphenol-free white chocolate each day.

After 18 weeks, researchers found participants in the dark chocolate group experienced an 18 percent decrease in hypertension and experienced no change in body weight, plasma levels of lipid, or glucose. Participants in the white chocolate group experienced no change in blood pressure. Study authors report the 3 mm Hg reduction they saw in systolic blood pressure in members of the dark chocolate group was small but significant, as it could reduce a person's risk for stroke by 8 percent and risk for coronary artery disease by 5 percent.