Chocolate for Heart Disease

There are many types of heart disease. For each, there are a number of risks. Genetics can often influence whether or not you will get heart disease. Other risks include things such as cigarette smoking, poor cholesterol balance, high Blood Pressure, and obesity.

Heart Disease Defined

Heart disease is defined narrowly as any malady that has an effect on the heart. Such a definition includes only the heart muscle itself. It is a synonym for cardiac disease. More widely, heart disease includes any problem with the heart muscle or the blood vessels leading to and from the muscle.

Heart disease includes, but is not limited to, the following five examples:

* Angina
* Congenital heart disease
* Congestive heart failure
* Coronary artery disease
* Heart attack

Chocolate to the Rescue

Amazingly, studies show that you can reduce your risks for heart disease by eating chocolate.

Andrew Waterhouse, a University of California-Davis researcher, discovered in 1996 that chocolate contains chemicals known as phenols. These chemicals, said Waterhouse, might reduce heart disease risks.

Waterhouse knew that studies had already shown red wine to be effective in reducing heart disease risks. He was curious, however, about chocolate. Using laboratory experiments to measure the amount of phenols in various chocolate products: baker’s chocolate, cocoa powder, and milk chocolate, Waterhouse discovered that less than 2 ounces of milk chocolate provided the same amount of phenols as 5 ounces of red wine.

Eating chocolate, reasoned the researcher, not only can reduce heart disease risks, but more research will show that it does reduce heart disease risks. On the basis of those findings, research on the relationship of chocolate to heart disease continued. Results pointed increasingly toward chocolate’s benefits.

Then, in 2003, the University of Cologne, Germany published a new report on chocolate and heart disease. The Journal of the American Medical Association, Aug, 27, 2003 issue, carried the exciting report from the university’s Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, and his colleagues.

Dark chocolate lowers high Blood Pressure and reduces that risk associated with heart disease.

Taubert and colleagues, following through on Waterhouse’s beginning work, had shown through clinical research the effects of chocolate in humans with heart disease. Milk chocolate and white chocolate were ineffective. Whether milk was blended into the chocolate or consumed with it, it diluted the effect.

Choose Dark Chocolate

Choose dark chocolate to reduce heart disease risks. Dark chocolate is the only one that linked back to Waterhouse’s 1996 discovery about phenols.

Cocoa phenols lower Blood Pressure. They also lower the risk of heart disease by preventing fat-like substances from clogging arteries.

Eating dark chocolate can reduce certain heart disease risks - if it is dark chocolate - the darker the better - and is not diluted with milk. European chocolates contain more cocoa phenols, and are the better choice.

Conclusion

Some risks for heart disease are not affected by chocolate, but this is a sweet way to attack those that are. Moderation is the key.

CAUTION: The author is not a medical professional, and offers the information in this article for educational purposes only. Please discuss it with your health care provider before relying on it in any way.