Can dark chocolate improve your health?

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For chocolate lovers, this could be the best news we’ve heard in ages. According to a study just released by the American Academy of Neurology, chocolate has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of stroke. 

Specifically, according to the analysis, people who have at least one serving of chocolate per week are less likely to suffer stroke than people who have no chocolate.

More study is needed into the exact nature of chocolate’s anti-stroke properties, and, as study author Sarah Sahib warns, “More research is needed to determine whether chocolate lowers stroke risk, or whether healthier people are simply more likely to eat chocolate than others.”

But when we combine this new study with what we already know about chocolate’s health benefits—that, among other things, it helps lower blood pressure and serves as a powerful antioxidant—these findings cast new, positive light upon a food that has traditionally been considered a decadent indulgence.

Chocolate and blood pressure

A separate study published in the August 2007 edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association looked into the effects of habitual chocolate consumption on blood pressure, and the results were largely positive.

In short, over a period of several months, the researchers gave continual doses of dark chocolate to a randomized selection of adults between the ages of 55-75, and they concluded that this habitual dark chocolate intake did contribute to progressive reductions in both major types of blood-pressure.

And, as the researchers note, even though the overall blood pressure reduction was relatively small, even this amount was enough to “reduce the risk of stroke mortality by 8%, of coronary artery disease mortality by 5%, and of all-cause mortality by 4%.” In other words, eating chocolate made participants not only more healthy but also less likely to suffer the catastrophic consequences of high blood pressure. 

Antioxidants in chocolate

While researchers are still looking into the exact nature of chocolate’s health benefits, it’s believed that the chocolate ingredients known as polyphenols are the main contributing factor.

If you’re not familiar with polyphenols, they are naturally occurring chemical components found in many types of plants. They exist in berries, tea, red wine, beer, olive oil, coffee, many types of nuts, pomegranates, popcorn, many vegetables and, of course, chocolate. After all, cocoa—the main ingredient in chocolate—is a fruit, so it’s not so far-fetched to think it would contain many of the same healthy ingredients as things like nuts and berries.

The exact benefits of polyphenols are not fully clear, but they are known to be powerful antioxidants. Antioxidants eliminate free radicals and keep the body’s cells fresh and healthy, helping the body to run smoothly, which in turn aids in clearing the arteries and reducing the risk of the types of cardiovascular illness that lead to high blood pressure and stroke.

Good chocolate and bad chocolate: a warning

When asked about studies such as these, doctors tend to be a bit ambivalent about the real health benefits of chocolate—and for good reason. The danger of these studies is that people may interpret them as a license to go out and eat as much chocolate as they want. But the fact is that the findings of these studies do not apply to most types of chocolate you can get at the store. 

Most likely, the reason dark chocolate has the greatest health benefits is that it’s closer to pure cocoa than other forms of chocolate. And because it’s still relatively close to the original cocoa fruit, it still contains many of those healthy antioxidants.

But it’s important to note that, when it comes to milk chocolate, white chocolate, and things like candy bars, chocolate syrup, and chocolate cake, the cocoa has been so processed and adulterated that those good chemicals are all but eliminated. Mass-produced candy, in particulary, contains hardly any real chocolate at all; it’s mostly sugar and artificial ingredients.

So, while the news is good for chocolate lovers, it’s still best to stick with dark chocolate, and only in moderation.

- Staff - 

Image courtesy of miss karen via Flickr