Eating dark chocolate really is good for you…

Eating just 40grams of dark chocolate a day for two weeks, may help reduce your body’s response to emotional stress (Martin et al., 2009).  The exact mechanisms are still unknown; however, stress hormones and other stress related markers were shown to be reduced in the study, long term benefits were not established.

On another positive chocolate note, as you may already have heard, dark chocolate contains high levels of anti oxidants, plant sterols and coco flavonoids.  Daily consumption of dark chocolate high in these anti oxidants, has been found to support a healthy cardiovascular system, lower cholesterol and improve blood pressure (Allen et al., 2008).  It is important to ensure your diet is full of nutrient dense foods to ensure your health is optimum, just eating chocolate won’t have the desired effects.  It’s still good news for chocoholics, but you still need to eat your greens!!!

References:

Allen R. R.,Carson L., Kwik-Uribe C., Evans E. M. and Erdman J. W (2008) Daily Consumption of a Dark Chocolate Containing Flavanols and Added Sterol Esters Affects Cardiovascular Risk Factors in a Normotensive Population with Elevated Cholesterol. Journal of Nutrition 138: 725-731

Francois-Pierre J. Martin, Serge Rezzi, Emma Per-Trepat, Beate Kamlage, Sebastiano Collino, Edgar Leibold, Jrgen Kastler, Dietrich Rein, Laurent B. Fay and Sunil Kochhar (2009) Metabolic Effects of Dark Chocolate Consumption on Energy, Gut Microbiota, and Stress-Related Metabolism in Free-Living Subjects. Journal of Proteome Research 8 (12), 5568-5579