Healthy Chocolate : Fact or Fiction?

Dark Chocolate, But Not Tea, Takes a Bite Out of Blood Pressure

2007-04-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

Published: Monday, April 9, 2007 | 9:49 PM ET

Canadian Press: ED EDELSON, HEALTHDAY REPORTER

MONDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) - Cocoa-rich products such as dark chocolate may help lower high blood pressure, but tea won't do much, according to a new survey of the medical literature by German researchers.

Although the thought of chocolate as a health food has captured public attention, not much research on the issue has been done, said a team from the University Hospital of Cologne.

Their report covered exactly 10 studies on cocoa with a total of 173 participants and five tea studies with 343 participants.

The benefits are believed to come from compounds known as polyphenols (or flavonoids), explained Dr. Dirk Taubert, senior lecturer in pharmacology and toxicology at Cologne and lead author of the report.

He leavened his support of chocolate with a bit of caution.

"Based on our analysis, regular consumption of polyphenol-rich cocoa products like dark chocolate may be considered a part of a blood pressure-lowering diet, provided there is no total gain in calorie intake," Taubert said. "However, in the studies we reviewed, the blood pressure results occurred with cocoa doses above the habitual intake and were observed only in the setting of short-term interventions."

In other words, for the average chocolate nibbler, the jury is still out on the sweet's health effects, Taubert said. "To date, it is not known whether long-term intake of small habitual amounts of cocoa, such as a small bar or piece of chocolate per day, may also cause significant blood pressure effects," he said.

The cocoa studies lasted an average of two weeks, with four out of five trials reporting a reduction in both systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading, when the heart contracts) and diastolic number, when the heart relaxes.

The average reduction was 4 to 5 millimeters of mercury (mm/Hg) in systolic pressure and 2 to 3 millimeters in diastolic pressure - enough to reduce the risk of stroke by 20 percent and of coronary heart disease by 10 percent.

No such reduction in blood pressure was noted in any of the tea trials, which lasted an average of four weeks.

Tea and cocoa contain different kinds of polyphenols - flavan-3-ols in tea, procyanids in cocoa, the researchers said.

"We do not know exactly which are the active blood pressure-lowering ingredients in cocoa," Taubert said. "There is evidence that the cocoa polyphenols are responsible, but there are several hundreds of phenols in cocoa."

Whichever are responsible, studies of cell cultures in his laboratory have also suggested that polyphenols can stop the oxidation of beta-amyloid protein, the process that leads to formation of plaque in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients, said Chang Y. Lee, chairman of the department of food science and technology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

In addition, "reports from many laboratories clearly show that the ingestion of flavonoid-rich foods enhance circulation," Lee said. Much remains to be learned, Lee added. "Many people have been talking about different kinds of flavonoids," he said. But we do not know exactly how much of these compounds are absorbed in the body and also when they are absorbed, how much is distributed to different sites."

Lee said he can "happily recommend" the occasional cup of cocoa. "But I am cautious about people taking chocolate milk, because it is high in sugar and high in fat," he said. "Dark chocolate may be all right, but I do not recommend cocoa preparations that contain high sugar."

Drug treatment is the basis of blood pressure control, Taubert said, and it should always be accompanied by lifestyle measures such as exercise and proper diet. "Rationally applied, cocoa products may be part of such an antihypertensive diet," he said.

Alzheimer's Info: Dark Chocolate, Red Wine, and Nuts Can Help "Maintain the Brain"

2007-04-04T11:38:00.000-07:00

Diet Promotes Healthy Brain and Heart

By Walt Crocker

They got some of it right way back in the fifties. “Drink your milk.” Eat your liver.” “Fish is good brain food, all the things that your Grandma told you. Milk, while high in fat, has a lot of calcium. Liver is a good source of iron and other minerals, and now we know that some kinds of fish is high in Omega 3 fatty acids. Some of the other practices of that time period have been found out to be not so good, like smoking cigarettes and eating a lot of red meat. Of course I think that a balanced diet and lots of exercise is the best advice and this has been pretty consistent, except for a few rumblings in the food pyramid. This doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t indulge in the latest food that’s been shown in some study to be beneficial in one way or another. There is something that many of the health fads in food seem to leave out: the food should taste good. But, the latest hot trend is one that I, as well as most people, can sink their teeth into.

Recently the Alzheimer’s association has suggested that consuming dark chocolate, wine, and nuts can reduce your chances of developing dementia later in life. This year the local chapter of the Alzheimer's association here in St. Louis has introduced the “Maintain Your Brain’ program. In addition to their annual wine tasting event, the Alzheimer's association has also included a gift basket of dark chocolate and nuts. They maintain that dark chocolate, red wine, and nuts are not only good for your brain, but heart health as well.

There are over 300 chemically active compounds in the cacao bean, from which pure chocolate is made, making it one of the most complex health-promoting foods in the world. Cocoa powder is also rich in flavonoid plyphenols. These compounds are not only one of the richest sources of antioxidants, but they have also been shown to have anti-inflammatory, anti microbial, and cancer preventing properties as well. We all know about the nasty business of free radicals, the end result of oxidation, but with all of the talk recently of how certain proteins can cause inflammation which can lead to scaring of the arteries and heart disease, a little anti-inflammatory regimen may be just what the doctor ordered.

Two other foods that you may want to consider adding to your brain and heart health diet are blueberries and a little berry from the Amazon called the Acai berry. The natives have been using all of the plant; the roots, stems, heart, and leaf fronds for years. One of the healthiest parts of the plant is the berry itself. For years the Acai berry was very hard to get, you had to paddle down the river for days into the heart of the rain forest, but now they are much more accessible, even making their way onto the Oprah Show recently. One company, called MXI has combined dark chocolate, blueberries, and the Acai berry into one easy to eat piece of chocolate. The stuff tastes pretty good too. You can get more information by visiting mxi.myvoffice.com/rmb.

So now I have my bowl of dark chocolate, some walnuts, and a big bottle of red wine. Can life get any better? The only thing left to do is to get a corkscrew and a nutcracker.

The Connections Explained - Oxidation, Antioxidants, and Disease

2007-03-27T20:02:00.000-07:00

This information comes from Dr. Stephen Warren's website MyDrChocolate.com. Many hear about free radical damage, or oxidation, and antioxidants, but they know very little about how it all works...

In order to understand how we can limit the damage from chronic illnesses and aging, we need to understand how some of the chronic illnesses develop.

Cardiovascular or heart disease is a leading cause of death in our society. Everyone has some degree of heart vessel disease or damage. The vessels which bring blood to heart muscles become damaged with fat from our diet which becomes hard and blocks the blood flow (atherosclerosis or arteriosclerosis). There are several thoughts on how this happens but the main theory is that bad cholesterol (LDL-C) is oxidized (lipid peroxidation).

What is oxidization? All body cells use oxygen to make energy and to function. Oxidization occurs every time oxygen is burnt as a food for energy. The oxygen mixes with different compounds (proteins, fat, etc.) or molecules to form highly unstable and highly reactive molecules called free radicals. The body likes all of its molecules/atoms to have even numbers of electrons (the negative part of an atom). When the oxygen mixes with the molecule it forms an extra electron which makes this an unstable free radical with an uneven number of electrons. It is important to remember that environment factors like smoking, radiation, pollution, hypertension, high fat diet, elevated blood sugars can also oxide the body cells to form free radicals. The main types of free radicals are called superoxide, hydroxyl, singlet oxygen, peroxyl, and hydrogen peroxide molecules. They are even formed during infections (oxidation is necessary for health because oxidation is needed to kill microorganisms) or chronic inflammation when free radicals are formed to fight the infection and over produce themselves. Even strenuous exercise will increase the production of free radicals. These free radicals like to hook to other cells to steal electrons and in turn there is a domino effect as each cell tries to steal electrons causing a major chain reaction. These unstable molecules commonly damage the cell membranes (by attaching to unsaturated fatty acids), weaken blood vessel walls, affect immune cells, modify protective enzymes and hinder how the cell functions. They cause a lot of inflammation and even scar tissue from their damage. The free radicals can also damage cell proteins and even alter DNA within the cell. It has been estimated that the human body generates 1-3 billion free radicals a day per cell!!! It is thought that each DNA in each of our trillion plus cells is bombarded by 10,000 free radicals a day. No wonder there is evidence that more than 200 diseases are caused by free radical damage. Blindness, arthritis, kidney disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, arthritis, dementia and even physical aging are the result of free radical damage.

Dr. Warren is a huge proponent of organic dark chocolate as a high quality source of antioxidants that help prevent and reverse disease in the body.

Safe Tanning - Chocolate As Sunscreen?

2007-03-23T02:56:00.000-07:00

Another amazing article about chocolate...

Janet Raloff

As if you needed another reason to eat chocolate, German researchers have shown that ingesting types rich in cocoa solids and flavonoids—dark chocolate—can fight skin cancer. Their findings are preliminary because they come from a trial of just 24 women who were recruited to add cocoa to their breakfasts every day for about 3 months.

UV-SHIELDING DRINK? Dermatologists recommend sunscreen to prevent skin cancer. However, regular consumption of cocoa and certain other foods might offer an added line of skin defense, new data suggest.
iStockphoto

Half the women drank hot cocoa containing a hefty dose of flavonoids, natural plant-based antioxidants that research has suggested prevent heart attacks. The remaining volunteers got cocoa that looked and tasted the same but that had relatively little of the flavonoids. At the beginning and end of the trial, Wilhelm Stahl of Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf and his colleagues conducted a host of tests on each volunteer. One assessment involved irradiating each woman's skin with slightly more ultraviolet (UV) light than had turned her skin red before the trial began.

The skin of the women who had received the flavonoid-rich cocoa did not redden nearly as much as did the skin of recruits who had drunk the flavonoid-poor beverage. Women getting the abundant flavonoids also had skin that was smoother and moister than that of the other women.

Overexposure to UV light can foster the development of skin cancer. A dietary source of skin protection might offer some innate defense for sunny days when an individual doesn't use sunscreen, Stahl's team says.

Why chocolate?

Chocolate, these scientists note, is just the latest in a range of antioxidant-rich foods holding the potential to shield skin from sun damage. For nearly a decade, Stahl's group has conducted studies with cooked tomato products showing that their ingestion, too, can limit UV-induced skin reddening. Pigmented molecules called carotenoids—especially the one known as lycopene—appeared responsible for tomato's skin-protection benefit (see Dietary protection against sunburn (with recipe)).

Many of the carotenoids in tomatoes are powerful antioxidants that can quash free radicals. These are the molecular fragments that can cause biological havoc when they rip electrons from other molecules. Because many flavonoids also function as potent antioxidants, Stahl's team decided to investigate whether substances in chocolate might offer skin protection.

The researchers recruited women between the ages of 18 and 65. Each volunteer received packets of a dry powder to mix each day with 100 milliliters of hot water—roughly a half cup. Half of the women received powder containing 329 milligrams of flavanols, a type of flavonoid, per serving. The rest got powder delivering a mere 27 mg of flavanols per serving. The primary flavanols were epicatechin and catechin.

Mars Inc., the candy company that has been experimenting with dark-chocolate products rich in flavonoids, supplied the cocoa powder and partially funded the experiment. Harold H. Schmitz, the company's chief science officer, claims that the proprietary recipe for the product retains nearly all of the natural-cocoa flavonoids that most chocolate processing cooks and washes out.

In the June Journal of Nutrition, Stahl's team reports that the women drinking the high-flavonoid cocoa had 15 percent less skin reddening from UV light after 6 weeks of cocoa consumption and 25 percent less after 12 weeks of the trial. Both figures are comparisons with the same women's response to UV light before the study started. The women drinking the cocoa with low flavonoids showed no change during the trial.

Most flavonoids absorb UV light, and this probably played a role in the skin effect, the researchers say. However, they add, skin reddening is also an inflammatory response, and other researchers have linked consumption of flavonoids to ratcheting down the body's synthesis of inflammatory agents.

For the women getting larger doses of flavonoids, blood flow in the skin doubled over the course of the trial in tissue 1 millimeter below the surface, and increased by 37.5 percent in tissue 7 to 8 mm deep. Similar improvements in blood flow through big blood vessels have been witnessed after people have eaten dark chocolate (see Cardiovascular Showdown—Chocolate vs. Coffee).

Moreover, after 12 weeks of consuming the flavanol-rich cocoa, the women's skin was 16 percent denser, 11 percent thicker, 13 percent moister, 30 percent less rough, and 42 percent less scaly than it was at the beginning of the experiment. Although the mechanism for most of these benefits remains unclear, the Düsseldorf researchers suspect that improved blood flow was a contributor.

Mars' Schmitz agrees. "People don't think about it, but in reality your skin, just like every other tissue, depends on healthy blood flow. And in our previous work ... we showed that blood flow in the extremities—the finger tip—was improved" in people receiving cocoa flavonoids. So, he argues, "it wasn't a shot in the dark" to hypothesize that cocoa ingestion might improve overall skin condition and health. Yet, he adds, "I was still surprised to see this."

If follow-up studies confirm these skin-health data, he says, "you're talking about being able to make people look better." He adds, "We did not go into this study with the intention to create a skin-health product, but it now looks like maybe we've got one."

Not just any chocolate

Could a person realistically add enough flavonoids to his or her diet to produce the benefits suggested by the study? Flavonoid quantities in the richer cocoa were "similar to those found in 100 grams [a little over 3 ounces] of dark chocolate," Stahl's group reports.

The cocoa drink provided its flavonoids in a serving that delivered only about 50 calories—far below the 400 to 500 calories ordinarily encountered in candy providing a walloping dose of flavanols. Schmitz concludes that people can, in theory, get this efficacious dose without blimping out.

The rub is that the cocoa used in this study and in others by Mars isn't commercially available. If enough people pester the company for the cocoa, Schmitz says, "eventually we might have to offer such a product." In the meantime, he notes, the company offers a candy, CocoaVia, in flavanol-rich portions that deliver fewer than 100 calories per serving.

Targeting free radicals and more

The new skin-protection data are more than a curiosity, says Hasan Mukhtar, director of dermatology research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. The results suggest, he says, that dietary flavonoids reach the upper layers of skin and "have the ability to counteract the oxygen free radicals generated as a consequence of exposure to UV radiation."

UV exposure leads not only to impaired immunity and accelerated aging in skin, but also to cancer, especially in light-skinned people, Mukhtar points out. Work by his group and others has shown that UV light triggers many reactions in the body that can lead to tissue damage.

In several papers, Mukhtar and his colleagues have found evidence that natural botanical antioxidants—such as those just tested in cocoa—can inhibit harmful, UV-triggered chemical pathways in the body.

In a study at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Mukhtar's group applied epicatechin-rich green-tea flavonoids to the skin of volunteers before irradiating the area with UV light. The researchers found that compared with the response of unprotected skin, the tea cut by 60 to 80 percent DNA changes known to play a role in immune suppression and skin cancer. The team noted that the treatment also prevented sunburn.

In the March-April Photochemistry and Photobiology, Mukhtar's team reports the results of treating cultured skin cells with pomegranate fruit extract, a substance rich in flavonoids. When irradiated with UV-light in a test tube, human cells in such an experiment usually undergo stress-induced inflammatory changes that can lead to cancer. However, the pomegranate extract dramatically inhibited those pre-carcinogenic changes.

Mukhtar points out that such data show that "not all of these agents affect the same signaling pathways." This suggests, he says, that eating a mix of flavonoid-rich foods may reinforce the UV protection by simultaneously acting on several potentially damaging processes. Some flavonoid treatments may even prove additive in their skin-protecting role, he says.

Chocolate's agents might offer important backup protection to some of the substances his group has been testing, says Mukhtar.

However, diet isn't the only means of getting these protective agents to the tissues that need them, Mukhtar suspects. He says it may make sense to add them to skin-care products.

That said, I'd prefer to get my protection from eating dark chocolate. Indeed, I look for any excuse to label as therapeutic my bittersweet indulgence.

References:

Afaq, F., . . . and H. Mukhtar. 2005. Pomegranate fruit extract modulates UVB-mediated phosphorylation of mitogen activated protein kinases and activation of nuclear factor kappa B in normal human epidermal keratinocytes. Photochemistry and Photobiology 81(January-February):38-45. Abstract available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1562/2004-08-06-RA-264.1. Preprint available at http://phot.allenpress.com/pdfserv/10.1562%2F2004-08-06-RA-264.

Elmets, C.A., . . . and H. Mukhtar. 2001. Cutaneous photoprotection from ultraviolet injury by green tea polyphenols. Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology 44(March):425-432. Abstract available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1067/mjd.2001.112919.

Heinrich, U., . . . and W. Stahl. 2006. Long-term ingestion of high flavanol cocoa provides photoprotection against UV-induced erythema and improves skin condition in women. Journal of Nutrition 136(June):1565-1569. Abstract available at http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/136/6/1565.

Katiyar, S.K., A. Perez, and H. Mukhtar. 2000. Green tea polyphenol treatment to human skin prevents formation of ultraviolet light B-induced pyrimidine dimers in DNA. Clinical Cancer Research 6(October):3864-3869. Available at http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/full/6/10/3864.

Malik, A., . . . and H. Mukhtar. 2005. Pomegranate fruit juice for chemoprevention and chemotherapy of prostate cancer. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102(Oct. 11):14813-14818. Available at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/102/41/14813.

Mukhtar, H. 2003. Eat plenty of green leafy vegetables for photoprotection: Emerging evidence. Journal of Investigative Dermatology 121(August):viii-viii. Available at http://www.nature.com/jid/journal/v121/n2/full/5601868a.html.

Syed, D.N., . . . and H. Mukhtar. 2006. Photochemopreventive effect of pomegranate fruit extract on UVA-mediated activation of cellular pathways in normal human epidermal keratinocytes. Photochemistry and Photobiology 82(March-April): 398-405. Abstract available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1562/2005-06-23-RA-589.

Further Readings:

Harder, B. 2005. Can chocolate fight diabetes, too? Science News Online (Aug. 13). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050813/food.asp.

Raloff, J. 2006. Prescription strength chocolate, revisited. Science News Online (Feb. 25). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060225/food.asp.

______. 2005. Leaden chocolates. Science News Online (Nov. 5). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20051105/food.asp.

______. 2005. Food colorings. Science News 167(Jan. 8):27-29. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050108/bob9.asp.

______. 2004. Cardiovascular showdown—Chocolate vs. coffee. Science News Online (May 29). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20040529/food.asp.

______. 2001. Dietary protection against sunburn (with recipe). Science News Online (May 26). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20010526/food.asp.

______. 2000. Chocolate hearts. Science News 157(March 18):188-189. Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000318/bob10.asp.

______. 2000. Chocolate therapies (with recipe for Janet's chocolate medicinal mousse pie). Science News Online (March 18). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20000318/food.asp.

______. 1997. Looking for lycopene? Tomatoes are okay, but . . . Science News Online (July 19). Available at http://www.sciencenews.org/pages/sn_arc97/7_19_97/food.htm.

Sources:

Hasan Mukhtar
Department of Dermatology
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Medical Sciences Center, Room B-25
1300 University Avenue
Madison, WI 53706

Harold H. Schmitz
Analytical and Applied Sciences
Mars Inc.
800 High Street
Hackettstown, NJ 07840

Wilhelm Stahl
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Institute for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Universitätstrasse 1
40225 Düsseldorf
Germany

http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20060617/food.asp
From Science News, Vol. 169, No. 24, June 17, 2006
Copyright (c) 2006 Science Service. All rights reserved.

Dark Chocolate Improves Insulin Sensitivity/Resistance and Blood Pressure

2007-03-21T14:52:00.000-07:00

It is probably the flavanols and procyanidins contained in the dark chocolate and not white chocolate that is associated with the observed health effects.

"Numerous studies indicate that flavanols may exert significant vascular protection because of their antioxidant properties and increased nitric oxide bioavailability," write Davide Grassi, from the University of L'Aquila in Italy, and colleagues. "In turn, nitric oxide bioavailability deeply influences insulin-stimulated glucose uptake and vascular tone. Thus, flavanols may also exert positive metabolic and pressor effects."

After a seven-day cocoa-free run-in phase, 15 healthy participants were randomized to receive either dark chocolate bars or white chocolate bars for 15 days, followed by another seven-day cocoa-free washout phase and then crossover to the other chocolate. The dark chocolate bars weighed 100 g and contained approximately 500 mg polyphenols; the white chocolate bars weighed 90 g and presumably contained no polyphenols. At the end of each period, oral glucose tolerance tests were performed to calculate the homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and the quantitative insulin sensitivity check index (QUICKI).

Mean HOMA-IR was 0.94 ± 0.42 after dark chocolate ingestion and 1.72 ± 0.62 after white chocolate ingestion (P < .001). Mean QUICKI was 0.398 ± 0.039 vs 0.356 ± 0.023, respectively (P = .001). Systolic blood pressure was lower after dark than after white chocolate ingestion (107.5 ± 8.6 vs 113.9 ± 8.4 mm Hg; P < .05). "Dark, but not white, chocolate decreases blood pressure and improves insulin sensitivity in healthy persons," the authors write. "These findings indicate that dark chocolate may exert a protective action on the vascular endothelium also by improving insulin sensitivity. Obviously, large scale trials are needed to confirm these protective actions of dark chocolate or other flavanol-containing foods in populations affected by insulin-resistant conditions such as essential hypertension and obesity." Am J Clin Nutr. 2005;81:541-542, 611-६१४

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Dark Chocolate and High Blood Pressure / Hypertension

2007-03-20T21:30:00.000-07:00

A Tufts University Study was conducted on the health benefits of dark chocolate. For 15 days, 10 men and 10 women ate 3.5 ounces of specially formulated, flavonoid-rich dark chocolate, while the other half ate the same amount of white chocolate which has no flavonoids. Then they switched groups and repeated the experiment. The dark chocolate group, on average, reduced systolic blood pressure by 12 points (the top number in a blood pressure reading) and reduced diastolic pressure by 9 points (the bottom number). Bad cholesterol was reduced by 10 percent.

Jeffrey Blumberg of Tufts University said, "Previous studies suggest flavonoid-rich foods, including fruits, vegetables, tea, red wine and chocolate, might offer cardiovascular benefits," (which is not bad for a little guilt free party!), "but this is one of the first clinical trials to look specifically at dark chocolate's effect on lowering blood pressure among people with hypertension."

Cocoa 'vitamin' health benefits could outshine penicillin

2007-03-20T11:44:00.000-07:00

This is an amazing article...

The health benefits of epicatechin, a compound found in cocoa, are so striking that it may rival penicillin and anaesthesia in terms of importance to public health, reports Marina Murphy in Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. Norman Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, told C&I that epicatechin is so important that it should be considered a vitamin.

Hollenberg has spent years studying the benefits of cocoa drinking on the Kuna people in Panama. He found that the risk of 4 of the 5 most common killer diseases: stroke, heart failure, cancer and diabetes, is reduced to less then 10% in the Kuna. They can drink up to 40 cups of cocoa a week. Natural cocoa has high levels of epicatechin.

'If these observations predict the future, then we can say without blushing that they are among the most important observations in the history of medicine,' Hollenberg says. ‘We all agree that penicillin and anaesthesia are enormously important. But epicatechin could potentially get rid of 4 of the 5 most common diseases in the western world, how important does that make epicatechin?... I would say very important’

Nutrition expert Daniel Fabricant says that Hollenberg’s results, although observational, are so impressive that they may even warrant a rethink of how vitamins are defined. Epicatechin does not currently meet the criteria. Vitamins are defined as essential to the normal functioning, metabolism, regulation and growth of cells and deficiency is usually linked to disease. At the moment, the science does not support epicatechin having an essential role. But, Fabricant, who is vice president scientific affairs at the Natural Products Association, says: 'the link between high epicatechin consumption and a decreased risk of killer disease is so striking, it should be investigated further. It may be that these diseases are the result of epicatechin deficiency,' he says.

Currently, there are only 13 essential vitamins. An increase in the number of vitamins would provide significant opportunity for nutritional companies to expand their range of products. Flavanols like epicatechin are removed for commercial cocoas because they tend to have a bitter taste. So there is huge scope for nutritional companies to develop epicatechin supplements or capsules

Epicatechin is also found in teas, wine, chocolate and some fruit and vegetables.

"Sweet" Science Confirms Chocolate is Healthy

2007-03-16T04:43:00.000-07:00

Modern science has discovered some very amazing things about the cacao plant. According to ORAC testing (Click here for more about ORAC), cacao is the highest source of flavanol antioxidants on the earth, and it's not by just a little bit either! Chocolate blows away the competition in antioxidant value, coming in on the scale at 26,000 ORAC per100 grams vs. just 2,400 ORAC per 100 grams for blueberries. Just to clarify, antioxidants are molecules which prevent the damaging effects of oxygen free radicals in the body. The damage caused by oxygen free radicals is called oxidation. Examples of oxidation are bananas turning brown when left on the counter top, or the rusting of iron. Research has shown that flavonoids (the type of antioxidants found in cacao) play an important role in protecting the cacao plant. Further research has concluded that these same natural protective compounds in cacao beans, when consumed by humans, help maintain health by protecting cells from the damaging effects of free radicals. This means that common ailments such as high blood pressure, inflammation, type II diabetes, cancer, arthritis, and many more, each of which are traced back to oxygen free radical stress, are able to be prevented in many cases by the ample and steady intake of antioxidant rich organic foods. Amazing!

The Amazing History of Chocolate

2007-03-16T04:40:00.000-07:00

Did you know that for more than 90% of chocolate's 3,500 year history it has been consumed as a beverage? The plant chocolate comes from, theobroma cacao ("food of the gods"), grows along the equator and was put to great use by the Olmec, Mayan, and Aztec Indians in Central America. As a matter of fact, Emperor Montezuma II was probably history's first documented chocoholic! He consumed a reported 50 servings a day of the ancient royal drink Xocolatl, which is made from the cacao plant and other spices and peppers. The Emperor Himself declared "The divine drink builds up resistance and fights fatigue. A cup of this precious drink (cacao) permits a man to walk for a whole day without food." Often times Xocolatl was administered to warriors just before battle to increase strength, endurance, and mental awareness. When the Spaniards arrived in Central America they began exporting the chocolate back to Europe where it became wildly popular. Soon after this, the process of "dutching" the chocolate was invented, which is the process we are still familiar with today of converting the normally bitter cocoa bean to a much sweeter and seductive chocolate product.

Why Blog About Chocolate?

2007-03-16T03:32:00.000-07:00

Well, first of all...I love chocolate! I always have. Odds are you do as well! As a matter of fact, the average American consumes 11.5 lbs of the brown stuff annually! Wow, that's a lot of chocolate!
It's too bad chocolate is so bad for us, right? Or is it...? The truth is that the right kind of chocolate is extremely healthy! Thousands of people are feeling better, losing weight, controlling their diabetes, lowering blood pressure, lowering cholesterol, decreasing inflammation, and many other amazing benefits as a direct result of the consumption of healthy chocolate. My goal is to raise awareness of the wonderful healthy benefits of chocolate that I have discovered in recent months.