Sometimes Science proves what women knew all along, dark chocolate is good for you!
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Some “chocoholics” who just couldn’t give up their favorite treat to comply with a study to test blood stickiness have inadvertently done their fellow chocolate lovers - and science - a big favor.
Their “offense,” say researchers at Johns Hopkins led to what is believed to be the first biochemical analysis to explain why just a few squares of chocolate a day can almost halve the risk of heart attack death in some men and women by decreasing the tendency of platelets to clot in narrow blood vessels.
“What these chocolate ‘offenders’ taught us is that the chemical in cocoa beans has a biochemical effect similar to aspirin in reducing platelet clumping, which can be fatal if a clot forms and blocks a blood vessel, causing a heart attack,” says Diane Becker, M.P.H., Sc.D., a professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Becker cautions that her work is not intended as a prescription to gobble up large amounts of chocolate candy, which often contains diet-busting amounts of sugar, butter and cream. But as little as 2 tablespoons a day of dark chocolate - the purest form of the candy, made from the dried extract of roasted cocoa beans - may be just what the doctor ordered.
Researchers have known for nearly two decades that dark chocolate, rich in chemicals called flavonoids, lowers blood pressure and has other beneficial effects on blood flow. The latest Hopkins findings, to be presented Nov. 14 at the American Heart Association’s annual Scientific Sessions in Chicago, identified the effect of normal, everyday doses of chocolate found in ordinary foods, unlike previous studies that found decreased platelet activity only at impractically high doses of flavonoids equivalent to eating several pounds of chocolate a day.
“Eating a little bit of chocolate or having a drink of hot cocoa as part of a regular diet is probably good for personal health, so long as people don’t eat too much of it, and too much of the kind with lots of butter and sugar,” says Becker.
Peace & Blessings, Beverly Mahone Author, Whatever! A Baby Boomer's Journey Into Middle Age http://www.talk2bev.com 24 HOURS AND COUNTING UNTIL BEST SELLING BOOK DAY
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