Chocolate. It's good for what ails you.
Oh. You already knew that.
But it's for more than lifting your spirits when you're down, or giving you a boost when it's mid-afternoon and you've missed lunch again.
Not only is chocolate good for you, it goes well with that other miracle drug: red wine.
These points are from Health magazine, December 2006. Have I mentioned that I'm a bit behind in my reading?
Cocoa and heart health: "'Studies have shown heart benefitsfrom increased blood flow, less platelet stickiness and clotting, and improved bad cholesterol,' says Mary B. Engler, PhD, a chocolate researcher and director of the Cardiovascular and Genomics Graduate Program at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing. These benefits are the result of cocoa's antioxidant chemicals known as flavonoids, which seem to prevent both cell damage and inflammation."
Dark chocolate and blood pressure: "If yours is high, chocolate may help. Jeffrey Blumberg, PhD, director of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at Tufts University, recently found that hypertensive people who ate 3.5 ounces of dark chocolate per day for two weeks saw their blood pressure drop significantly, according to an article in the journal Hypertension. Their bad cholesterol dropped too. People who ate the same amount of white chocolate?" Nothing. (It doesn't have any cocoa--or flavonoids.)"
Sounds like my kind of study. Except that the participants had to cut about 400 calories from their other meals to make up for it, or they'd suffer from the other side effect of chronic chocolate indulgence. And we all know putting on the pounds does nothing for your blood pressure. Still...
Chocolate milk and muscle aches: "Chocolate milk may help you recover after a hard workout. In a small study at Indiana University, elite cyclist who drank chocolate milk between workouts scored better on fatigue and endurance than those who had some sports drinks."
Cocoa for softer skin: German researchers gave 24 women a half-cup of special extra-flavonoid-enriched cocoa every day. After 3 months, the women's skin was moister, smoother, and less scaly and red when exposed to ultraviolet light. The researchers think the flavonoids, which absorb UV light, help protect and increase blood flow to the skin, improving its appearance.
Sorry, I don't like this one. The should have compared them to a matched cohort who didn't get the cocoa and compared skins. To do a before-and-after leaves too much room for other factors. Did the study start in the Winter and end in the Spring? Enough reason right there for the after to be moister, smoother and less scaly.
Another reason chocolate is your study buddy: ..."preliminary research at West Virginia's Wheeling Jesuit University suggests chocolate may boost your memory, attention span, reaction time, and problem-solving skills by increasing blood flow to the brain. Chocolate companies found comparable gains in similar research on healthy young women and on elderly people."
More to love: Finally, Italian researchers surveyed 143 women who ate chocolate every day, and seemed to have more sex drive, better lubrication, and an easier time reaching orgasm.
Unfortunately, this study should never have been published, as it seems that the women who ate chocolate were all younger than the ones who didn't (now why would that be? They should have studied that instead.) giving a better explanation than the chocolate. Too bad.
[Image via Chocolate.com]
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