Dark chocolate is ‘good for the heart’, study suggests
Nutritionists have long said that eating dark chocolate in moderation can be good for our health. Now, researchers have discovered why. It may reduce the risk of atherosclerosis – thickening and hardening of the arteries – by restoring flexibility of the arteries and preventing white blood cells from sticking to the blood vessel walls.
Dark chocolate is good for the heart
The research team, including Prof. Diederik Esser of the Top Institute Food and Nutrition and the Division of Human Nutrition at Wageningen University, both in the Netherlands, published the study in The FASEB Journal.
To reach their findings, the investigators analyzed 44 overweight men aged between 45 and 70 years.
Over two periods of 4 weeks, the men were required to eat either 70 g of regular dark chocolate each day or 70 g of specially produced dark chocolate with high levels of flavanol – a naturally occurring antioxidant found in some plants, including the cocoa plant. Both chocolates were similar in their cocoa content.
Subjects were asked not to eat other foods high in calories during the study period, in order to prevent them from gaining weight.
The researchers assessed how both the chocolate high in flavanols and the regular chocolate stimulated the participants’ senses over the study duration. In other words, they looked at whether flavanol content motivated the subjects to eat the chocolate.
The vascular health of the participants was assessed both at the baseline and end of the study period.
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