Chocolate: Heart Saviour too

For those who believe in the Easter bunny, good news awaits. Just one small square of chocolate a day might help lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk for heart disease.

The sweet study

After analysing the diet and health habits of 19,357 people, aged 35 to 65, for at least 10 years, German researchers found that those who ate the most chocolate (an average of 7.5 grams a day) had lower blood pressure and were 39% less likely to have a heart attack than those who ate the least amount of chocolate (an average of 1.7 grams a day).

Cocoa for cardiac patients?

"To put that 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 6 grams a day, 85 fewer heart attacks and strokes per 10,000 people could be expected to occur over a period of about 10 years," study leader Dr Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition, is reported to have said.

6 grams of chocolate is equivalent to about one small square of a 100 gram bar, the researchers said.

"If the 39% lower risk is generalised 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," he said.

But keep it small

Buijsse cautioned that eating chocolate shouldn't increase a person's overall intake of calories or reduce the consumption of healthy foods.

"Small amounts of chocolate may help to prevent heart disease, but only if it replaces other energy-dense foods, such as snacks, in order to keep body weight stable," he said.

Why's chocolate good for you? Chocolates are good for you because it releases endorphins in the brain that acts as a pain reliever, will boost your appetite without causing weight gain, reduces the risk of heart disease and cancer and will even make you live longer. Chocolate which is rich in cocoa solids are now regarded as having the qualities that are beneficial to health. Cocoa is an excellent source of polyphenols of the flavanol group. Polyphenols are very good antioxidants that destroy free radicals in a body. Free radicals are dangerous to a human body and can cause some serious diseases such as cancer and heart diseases. Chocolates that are rich in flavanol have a large amount of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps in maintaining a healthy blood pressure. Also flavanol-rich chocolates act similar to low-dose aspirin. They promote a healthy blood flow. They even reduce the risk of heart attack and blood’s ability to clot in the arteries and veins.