Study
after study proves that dark chocolate—sweet, rich, and delicious—is good for
more than curing a broken heart.
The secret behind
its powerful punch is cacao, also the source of the sweet’s distinct taste.
Packed with healthy chemicals like flavonoids and theobromine, this little bean
is a disease-killing bullet. The only problem? Cacao on its own is bitter,
chalky, nasty stuff.
Enter milk, sugar,
and butter—good for your taste buds, not always good for your health. Besides
adding calories, these can dilute the benefits of cacao. So snack smart: Stick
to healthy chocolate with at least 70 percent cacao (or cocoa, which is cacao
in its roasted, ground form). As long as the content is that high, says Mary
Engler, Ph.D., a professor of physiological nursing at the University of
California at San Francisco, you can reap the benefits from eating only small
amounts. Because of its high fat and sugar content, limit yourself to 7 ounces,
or about four dark chocolate bars, a week.
6 health benefits of chocolate:
-A HEALTHIER HEART
The latest research
backs up claims that chocolate has cardiovascular benefits: In a 9-year Swedish
study of more than 31,000 women, those who ate one or two servings of dark
chocolate each week cut their risk for heart failure by as much as a third.
Wish that was a
serving each day? Another big, long-term study in Germany this year found that
about a square of dark chocolate a day lowered blood pressure and reduced risk
of heart attack and stroke by 39 percent. Most of the credit goes to
flavonoids, antioxidant compounds that increase the flexibility of veins and
arteries.
But since those
antioxidants come with a generous portion of sugar, milk, and butter, chowing
down on chocolate isn’t an excuse to skip your workout. Chocolate and exercise
actually work surprisingly well together: Another recent study, out of
Australia this time, showed that eating chocolate high in healthy antioxidants
reduced the blood pressure-raising effects of exercise on overweight
individuals. So go ahead and reward yourself. A chocolate bar has five times
the flavonoids of an apple, after all.
–HIGHER INTELLIGENCE
Next time you’re
under pressure on a work project, don’t feel so guilty about grabbing a dark
chocolate bar from the vending machine. Not only will it help your body ward
off the effects of stress, but it’ll boost your brain power when you really
need it.
A University of
Nottingham researcher found that drinking cocoa rich in flavanols boosts blood
flow to key parts of the brain for 2 to 3 hours, which could improve
performance and alertness in the short term.
Other
researchers from Oxford University and Norway looked at chocolate’s long-term
effects on the brain by studying the diets of more than 2,000 people over age
70. They found that those who consumed flavanol-rich chocolate, wine, or tea
scored significantly higher on cognitive tests than those who didn’t.
-HAPPIER KIDS
Women who ate
chocolate daily during their pregnancy reported that they were better able to
handle stress than mothers-to-be who abstained. Also, a Finnish study found
their babies were happier and smiled more. Hmm, so your options are popping a piece
of premium chocolate or sticking a pacifier in your screaming baby’s mouth?
-REDUCED STRESS
UC San Diego
researchers recently confirmed what your fat pants could have told them back in
college: When times get tough, people tend to dip into the chocolate stash more
often than they might otherwise.
And as it turns
out, that kind of emotional eating might not be such a bad thing. You know what
kind of havoc stress and its sneaky sidekick cortisol can wreak on your body.
Swiss scientists (who else?) found that when very anxious people ate an ounce
and a half of dark chocolate every day for two weeks, their stress hormone
levels were significantly reduced and the metabolic effects of stress were
partially mitigated. After a breakup, break out a dark chocolate bar rather
than a pint of ice cream.
-EAT LESS
One of my favorite
effects of chocolate consumption is a reduction in appetite. One study quantified this by
giving participants a 100 g serving of either milk or dark chocolate two hours
before being served an all-you-can-eat lunch.Ingestion of dark chocolate was
correlated with a 17% lower calorie intake at the following meal, compared to
the milk chocolate group. (I’d imagine that it’s because the casein in milk
binds to the polyphenols in chocolate, making them unavailable to your body.)
The new Bulletproof Chocolate Bars are enriched with another appetite reducer,
XCT Oil for a double impact.
-CHOCOLATE IS A
PREBIOTIC
While many studies
assume that it is the cacao polyphenols acting directly to modulate biomarkers,
it is most likely the case that at least some of the effect is indirect, and
works through interaction with our gut microbiome. Research
suggests that low molecular weight cocoa flavanols such as epicatechin and
catechin can be absorbed directly into blood circulation, (unless you mix them
with milk) but this is not so for the larger polyphenols. In this case,
microflora in the colon work to break down high molecular weight polyphenols,
so that the smaller secondary metabolites may circulate throughout the body.
Source: Healthy Food Guide 24h