A Little Chocolate May Do the Heart Good
| According to a recent study reported by HealthDay News, a square of dark chocolate a day might help lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk for heart disease, which could lead to fewer heart attacks and strokes.
Here's what the news release from the European Heart Journal said. Researchers in Germany followed 19,357 people, aged between 35 and 65, for at least 10 years and found that those who ate the most amount of chocolate – an average of 7.5 grams a day – had lower blood pressure and a 39 percent lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke compared to those who ate the least amount of chocolate – an average of 1.7 grams a day. The difference between the two groups amounts to six grams of chocolate: the equivalent of less than one small square of a 100g bar.
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Dr. Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition, Nuthetal, Germany, who led the research said: "To put it in terms of absolute risk, if people in the group eating the least amount of chocolate (of whom 219 per 10,000 had a heart attack or stroke) increased their chocolate intake by six grams a day, 85 fewer heart attacks and strokes per 10,000 people could be expected to occur over a period of about ten years. If the 39 percent lower risk is generalized to the general population, the number of avoidable heart attacks and strokes could be higher because the absolute risk in the general population is higher."
However, Dr. Buijsse warned that it was important people ensured that eating chocolate did not increase their overall intake of calories or reduce their consumption of healthy foods. "Small amounts of chocolate may help to prevent heart disease, but only if it replaces other energy-dense food, such as snacks, in order to keep body weight stable," he said.
More Information
The American Heart Association has more about preventing heart disease, heart attack and stroke.
SOURCE:
European Heart Journal [news release]. March 30, 2010.
Read the news release in its entirety: http://www.oxfordjournals.org/our_journals/eurheartj/press_releases/freepdf/pr_chocolate_web.pdf
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