We love a good chocolate story. And lately, there have been quite a few.
Scientists have been hard at work investigating the potential health benefits of eating a small amount of dark chocolate every day. Recent studies have suggested that eating over 60 percent cocoa dark chocolate could help your blood pressure and even your insulin resistance.
And now, the latest chocolate study out of Australia suggests that eating dark chocolate every day for 10 years could reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes in some high-risk patients.
The team of researchers used a mathematical model to predict the long-term health impact of eating dark chocolate every day on people with a condition known as metabolic syndrome, which puts them at high risk of heart disease.
The team found that in the best case scenario - with no patient missing any daily portions - the treatment could potentially help avoid 70 non-fatal and 15 fatal heart attacks or strokes per 10,000 people over 10 years.
"Recommendations for daily consumption of dark chocolate ... will certainly get people with metabolic syndrome excited, but at this point these findings are more hypothetical than proven, and the results need real-life data to confirm," Kenneth Ong at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in the United States told Reuters Health. Ong was not involved in the new study.
The researchers, whose work was published in the British Medical Journal on Friday, stressed that not just any chocolate will do. The protective health effects have only been shown for dark chocolate containing at least 60 to 70 percent cocoa. Milk or white chocolate does not have the same health benefits. Scientists beleive dark chocolate is probably special because of the higher levels of flavonoids it contains.
But before you go eating dark chocolate every day for 10 years, scientists urge caution.
"I suspect that consuming dark chocolate every day for 10 years may have unintended adverse consequences," Ong said. "The additional sugar and caloric intake may negatively impact patients in this study, who are overweight and glucose intolerant to begin with."
Also important is knowing what to look for on the label when you buy dark chocolate.
According to an article on the website Livestrong.com, most chocolate out there is far from health food.
"Most commercial chocolates are highly processed foods, combining natural cacao and various amounts of sugar, milk, fat and other ingredients," the article reads. "For example, Ghirardelli's 60 percent Dark Chocolate Squares refers to a product containing 60 percent chocolate liquor and cocoa butter and 40 percent sugar, vanilla and other ingredients. The percentage of cacao also represents the product's taste and color. The higher the percentage, the more bitter the flavor and darker the color."
