Someone said that anything is good as long as it’s made of chocolate. And there might be a grain of truth in all this, given the fact that one of its ingredients is cacao, produced by a tropical tree that was once called “Theobroma cacao”, which can be translated as “cacao, food for the gods.”
Those who love chocolate will not disagree with this translation and will admit that it is hard to stay away from this guilty pleasure.
However, a recent study proves that you should not stay away from chocolate and, in fact, you should eat it every day, as long as you don’t forget completely about the importance of moderation in your life.
Moreover, the new study, whose results were published in the BMJ journal Heart, proves that any type of chocolate that contains cocoa would do. Up until now, dark chocolate got all the praise and was accepted in almost any diet.
This recently published research shows that a person who consumes chocolate every day has a lower chance of suffering from a heart disease later in life.
A team or researchers from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland looked at the data of more than 20,900 people, who were part of the EPIC-Norfolk study. These people had to answer questions related to their lifestyle choices, such as their eating or exercising habits.
They had their body weight and blood pressure measured and their overall health was assessed. After 12 years, the scientists looked at their health variables again. It was proved that almost 14 percent of them had either experienced a stroke or a cardiovascular disease.
What was most surprising for the experts was the fact that the people who consumed the most chocolate (16-100 grams a day) had the best chances to steer clear of a heart disease. Thus, the numbers showed that chocolate eaters had a 14 percent reduced risk of suffering from coronary heart disease (CHD) and 23 percent fewer chances of having a stroke.
The researchers took into account other parameters that might have led to these results. These included blood pressure, lower body mass index, inflammatory proteins, waist-to-hip ratio and many other variables that could have reduced the risk of having a heart attack.
This is why they decided to look at the data of 150,000 patients from other studies. The results showed an even stronger link between reduced risks of heart attack and chocolate consumption.
The lead study author, Dr. Phyo Myint said that the explanation lies in the existence of flavonols, ” which are potentially good for risk reduction through cholesterol- and blood-pressure-lowering effects,”
Thus, it might be true, after all, that a little chocolate won’t do you harm.
Image Source: 12wbt
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