Health Benefits of Cocoa
A study reported in a journal of the American Heart Association showed that middle-aged and elderly women who regularly ate a small amount of chocolate had lower risks of heart failure. The nine-year study conducted on over 30,000 women examined the relationship between high-quality chocolate consumption and heart failure. The results were positive.
Those who had 1-2 servings of the high-quality chocolate per week showed the best results with a 32% lower risk in developing heart failure. Also, the chocolate they ate had a high-density cocoa content, known as dark chocolate by American standards.
Of course we need to take this news with a grain of salt. “You can’t ignore that chocolate is a relatively calorie-dense food and large amounts of habitual consumption is going to raise your risks for weight gain,” said Murray Mittleman, M.D., director of a Cardiovascular Research Unit at Harvard Medical School in Boston. “But if you’re going to have a treat, dark chocolate is probably a good choice, as long as it’s in moderation.”
What makes the chocolate good for you heart? It has a high concentration of compounds called “flavonoids” in chocolate that is thought to lower blood pressure and reduce heart risk. The flavonoids act as antioxidants which prevent aging and damage that can lead to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains eight times the amount of antioxidants as strawberries. Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure through the production of nitric oxide, which balances hormones in the body. It also contains serotonin which helps relax your body.
When the body lacks adequate levels of antioxidants, damage from free radicals occurs and leads to increases in LDL (“bad)-cholesterol oxidation (oxidized LDL-cholesterol damages the arterial wall and plaque forms on the walls of the arteries).
But doesn’t chocolate have fat? Yes, but not all of it is bad. There are three forms of fat in chocolate, 1/3 each.
- Oleic Acid - a healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil.
- Stearic Acid- a saturated fat but one which research shows to have a neutral effect on cholesterol.
- Palmitic Acid- also a saturated fat, one which raises cholesterol and heart disease risk.
Things to note.
This information doesn’t mean that you can justify eating a pound of chocolate a day. Chocolate is still a high-calorie, high-fat food. Most of the studies done used no more than 100 grams, or about 3.5 ounces, of dark chocolate a day to get the benefits. One bar of dark chocolate has around 400 calories. If you eat half a bar of chocolate a day, you must balance those 200 calories by eating less of something else. Cut out other sweets or snacks and replace them with chocolate to keep your total calories the same.
Not all chocolates are equal. Milk chocolate and white chocolate don’t count, they’re loaded with sugar and have lower concentration of cocoa. This also includes candy bars with nougat, which are also loaded with sugar.
Check out this recipe for Chocolate Souffle.
Resources:
American Heart Association (2010, August 17). Moderate chocolate consumption linked to lower risks of heart failure, study finds.
BioMed Central Limited (2010, June 28). Dark chocolate lowers blood pressure, research finds.
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