Does Dark Chocolate on Valentine’s Day Help Your Heart?
February 14th 2012 23:33
Why Your Heart Loves Cupid's Favorite Treat
By Marc Gillinov, M.D., and Steven Nissen, M.D.
Heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are everywhere on Valentine's Day. The intriguing question, debated by scientists for decades, is whether the candy inside helps your heart.
Popular mythology holds that chocolate is good for your heart, and that dark chocolate is better than milk chocolate. If chocolate does turn out to be an effective heart medicine, we foresee no problem getting people to comply with the prescription. In fact, the average American already consumes 14 pounds of chocolate per year.
How It Helps
When it comes to chocolate and the heart, the focus is on the dark stuff. Small, short-term studies suggest dark chocolate has some potential heart health benefits, including decreased blood pressure and blood clotting, increased blood vessel health, and improved LDL cholesterol.
Of these, chocolate's effect on blood pressure has gotten the most attention. In most studies, short-term use of dark chocolate causes blood vessels to expand, which in turn modestly reduces blood pressure. A study of heart transplant recipients also found that blood flow to the heart increased after eating dark chocolate.
We agree that dark chocolate can lower blood pressure in the short term. But we don't really know if this translates into a long-term health benefit. Some studies suggest that people who regularly eat chocolate live longer and have a lower risk of heart disease than those who don't enjoy chocolate, while others find no such benefit.
Here's how chocolate may lower your diabetes risk, too.
The Magic Ingredient
Dark chocolate is rich in a group of antioxidants called flavanols -- believed to be the "active" ingredient that confers chocolate's cardiovascular advantage. Experimental studies demonstrate several potential benefits of flavanols, including lowering blood pressure and reducing blood clotting. That's why we give the nod to dark chocolate over milk chocolate for its potential heart benefits.
Check out this surprising source of antioxidants.
But there's a catch: Neither the color of the chocolate nor the cocoa content (frequently touted on the packaging) necessarily correlates with its flavanol content. Flavanols impart a bitter taste, so manufacturers often remove them when processing the cocoa. Because flavanols may be the most important health feature of chocolate, we'd like to see them listed on packaging. But methods for processing cocoa are closely guarded trade secrets, so manufactures aren't likely to share this information anytime soon.
Calories Count, Too
Here's our verdict: In small amounts, chocolate can be part of a heart-healthy lifestyle. But don’t forget about the calories. A standard chocolate bar contains 200 to 300 calories. And a single piece of premium chocolate from that heart-shaped box can have up to 70 calories. So, enjoy your dark chocolate in moderation.
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Comment by Quintin Watt
IT'S THE CALORIES.
And most of these, of course, come from the sugars and sweeteners. If you want to DO YOUR HEART IN - then pig out on chocolate! Chocolate drinks are just as bad in this respect - if not worse!
I'm not a medical doctor - never claim to be; I'm always careful to be VERY clear with my clients on that one! Neither am I a qualified nutritionist. But I do frequently have unhappy people come to me with weight and body issues, and seeming 'addictions' for all such things - as they themselves call 'bad for them'!
I am a trained scientist, though - and with more than a passing knowledge of human biology.
The 'benefits of chocolate'; dark, light, milk or as a drink - this seems to be one of the latest 'fads' of the world of popular (and tabloid - where it's always oversimplified, of course) nutrition. Like most of these 'fads', it will probably prove at best contentious. The article even seems to admit that: that the studies are far from conclusive, and even contradictory to some extent. I rather suspect that, in actual fact, the most enthusiastic advocates of what I will call these 'half-baked' theories (no pun intended here - lo!) about chocolate and its supposed 'benefits' - are people who can't really resist the stuff - and want to feel less 'guilty' about that. No?
Myself: I gave up sweets (or candy), chocolate, cakes, deserts, ice cream altogether - long ago ... and have had no craving whatever to go back to them (oh, believe me, there is evidence that all such things - esp chocolate - are actually biochemically, and not just psychologically, addictive). I just kept telling myself every time I saw them: 'POISON' ...(along with alcohol, tobacco, street drugs (which I've never done, anyway - not even in the outrageous 60's when I was a (long haired!) teenager!)) and ... it worked! I don't even need that mantra now (thank goodness!).
As to the COCOA part of it (which is not the calorie laden, obesity begetting killer of the piece in any case); yes, that does indeed tend to have a more bitter taste - hence most prefer it heavily sweetened (as in drinking chocolate, say) - clearly more research is needed here - i.e as to what the actual cocoa part - as opposed to the sweeteners and additives - actually does: in terms of our body's 'good' and 'bad' cholesterol. And it could well be, too, that there are other, less fattening, natural and edible sources of these flavanols and other antioxidants. I do know, for example, that raw tomatoes (and I eat HEAPS of those as a part of my diet) contain masses of desirable antioxidants. Hmmm!
I could discuss - but it would become a whole 'thesis' in itself, of course (!) - how it is that our early hominid ancestors, before they became carnivores and omnivores (as we are today - most of us), were mostly frugivorous then - fruit and nut eaters, basically (like the great apes, our nearest 'cousins' mostly are today) - and how, to quote a very good (email) friend of mine (who put me onto, a while ago now, the benefits of my raw food vegan diet - which includes LOTS of whole raw fresh fruit):
"We were given a sweet tooth" (originally, she means; our ancestors, say 1 and half to 2 million years ago) "so that we would eat fruit - NOT candy, chocolate, cakes or cookies".
Exactly so!
- Jeff Watt, Mental and Spiritual Healer
Comment by katyzzz
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Comment by Quintin Watt
Chocolate (like all sugar-rich foods, in fact) is VERY VERY bad for your teeth!! (duh!!)
Jeff Watt, Mental and Spiritual Healer.