Reply
Thu 28 Aug, 2003 11:01 am
Posted on Wed, Aug. 27, 2003
A new reason to like chocolate
Three ounces a day of the dark variety appeared to lower blood pressure, researchers report.
By Lindsey Tanner
Associated Press
CHICAGO - A small study suggests that eating dark chocolate can lower your blood pressure - a delicious instance in which something that tastes good might, for a change, be good for you, too.
The short study would need to be confirmed in larger, longer-term ones before doctors could recommend treatment with chocolate, researchers say.
Yet if the results can be confirmed, "you can sin with perhaps a little less bad feeling," said Franz Messerli, a hypertension expert at Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans.
The German study appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Thirteen adults with untreated mild hypertension got to eat 3-ounce chocolate bars every day for two weeks. Half of the patients got white chocolate, half got dark chocolate.
Dark chocolate contains plant substances called polyphenols - ingredients scientists think are responsible for the heart-healthy attributes of red wine. Milk chocolate also has polyphenols, but the levels are more than twice as high in dark chocolate.
Polyphenols also have been shown to lower blood pressure in animals.
Blood pressure remained pretty much unchanged in the group that ate white chocolate, which does not contain polyphenols. But after two weeks, systolic blood pressure - the top number - had dropped an average of five points in the dark-chocolate group. The lower, or diastolic, reading fell an average of almost two points.
The participants had an average blood pressure reading of about 153 over 84.
While their blood pressure did not fall enough to be considered in the desirable range - below 120 over 80 - the results showed dark chocolate "might serve as a promising approach to reduce systolic blood pressure," said lead author Dirk Taubert of the University of Cologne.
Taubert said participants ate the chocolate bars instead of the sweets they usually consumed and thus did not gain weight during the study.
The study received no industry funding - the researchers bought the chocolate themselves from the supermarket.
BumbleBee, I read about this study in Germany. They also found out that if you drink milk with your dark chocolate, there is no effect - just like with white chocolate. My blood pressure is great - but better be safe than sorry! Pass the dark chocolate. Lindt has excellent dark chocolate, btw. :-)
urs53
urs53, I love very dark chocolate. I can't afford much of the great European dark chocolates for snacking except for special occasions. For a simple snack I settle for DOVE's dark chocolate, which is reasonably priced and has a great taste and texture.
BumbleBeeBoogie
That is certainly an interesting tidbit of information.
Have you heard the one about eating a teaspoonful
of peanut butter before going to bed - the idea behind
this is that the peanut butter gets your stomach at
work digesting fats...so that it continues on during
the night - while you sleep pounds away> LOL
I sure hope so. I'm not too crazy about the dark
chocolate - but it sounds worth a try. I like this idea
better than taking those garlic pills, they make you
smell like a bulb of garlic. The only questionable
part about this study is that it was very small in size
so it isn't as statistically significant as it would be had
the authors used quite a few more subjects in their
study.
Stumble It!
Tweet This
Bookmark on Delicious
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace