Chocolate and Your Health

We all know chocolate tastes great and now more studies are showing that it is has real benefits for your health. In this article we’ll discuss why chocolate can be good for you and how to incorporate it into a healthy lifestyle.

Written by Madeline Gonzalez, Green Health Research Contributor

Why Is Chocolate Good for Me?

Chocolate is packed with good-for-you natural compounds called flavonoids. Flavonoids are natural antioxidants, meaning that they fight the damage caused by free radicals.

Free radical damage can lead to everything from wrinkles to high cholesterol to cancer. Free radicals are molecules that are present in environmental toxins like cigarette smoke and car exhaust and can also result from the breakdown of chemicals in the body.

When we eat food that contains antioxidants our bodies can use these antioxidants to fight the free radicals we encounter in our daily lives.

In a study conducted at the University of Barcelona in Spain, researchers studied the effects of cocoa on 42 men and women who were at risk for cardiovascular disease. Researchers gave half of the participants 1.4 ounces of unsweetened cocoa powder in 16 ounces of skin milk every day, and the other participants just plain skim milk.

After just one month the people who drank the skim milk containing the cocoa powder had lower levels of adhesion molecules in their blood. This is important because these adhesion molecules are proteins which can stick to the walls of the arteries, clog them, and then trigger a heart attack or stroke. The cocoa was also found to increase the level of HDL or “good” cholesterol in the blood as well.

Another study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association studied the effects of eating around 30 calories a day of dark chocolate. Eating this serving-size of dark chocolate on a daily basis was found to help lower blood pressure without leading to weight gain or other negative health consequences.

Other studies have shown that cocoa-rich diets can help to lower LDL “bad” cholesterol and can promote the body’s natural defenses.