Looks like a good news for those who eat a little chocolate each day as new study shows that it lowers risk of stroke and cardiovascular diseases.
Habitual chocolate eaters have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and strokes as opposed to those who didn't eat chocolate, according to a new study published in the journal Heart.
Dark chocolate is linked with health benefits such as lower risk of heart attacks, strokes and high blood pressure etc.
When sugar and milk is stripped out from chocolate, what's left is the cocoa bean, and the researchers are most interested in compounds in the cocoa. The study further affirms that bioactive plant compounds found in cocoa beans, called polyphenols, may actually help protect against heart disease, NPR noted.
Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University said, "What we're learning is that polyphenols ... seem to improve the health of our blood vessels."
Researchers tracked about 20,000 adults in England for nearly 12 years, as part of the new study. Participants filled out food frequency questionnaires and the researchers determined chocolate consumption from these surveys.
Howard LeWine of the Harvard Health Blog calculated exactly how much better the chocolate eaters fared as far as preventing heart disease is concerned.
Howard LeWine of the Harvard Health Blog calculates, "among those in the top tier of chocolate consumption, 12 percent developed or died of cardiovascular disease during the study, compared to 17.4 percent of those who didn't eat chocolate."
"There is, of course, a theoretical plausible explanation of why eating chocolate in moderation may expose some [people] to compounds - for example, flavonols - which are potentially good for risk reduction through cholesterol- and blood-pressure-lowering effects," lead study author Dr. Phyo Myint, MD, FRCP noted.
The reduction in risk is quite surprising, according to Myint. The chocolate eaters were divided into groups based on how much they ate, from the heaviest consumers to those who ate less.
"The group with the greatest benefit generally ate 16-to-100 grams per day," Myint writes in an email. To put that into perspective, a standard size Hershey bar has 43 grams.
Now, the rub with this kind of study is that the link between chocolate and health is just an association. "It doesn't prove a cause-and-effect relationship between chocolate and reduced risk of heart disease and stroke," Jo Ann Manson, chief of the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston said.
"The key is only to have moderate consumption [of chocolate] and ensure one does not exceed the calorie intake recommended for their height or weight," Myint added, "people who want to eat chocolate should not be worried too much about their cardiovascular health. We did not find any harmful effects of chocolate, if they want to enjoy chocolate now and again. The key is moderation."
