Dark chocolate the best treatment for the heart

 Dark chocolate the best treatment for the heart

The dark chocolate is good for your heart, but especially for your arteries. That should reassure the greedy. We already knew these beneficial properties, but now researchers know why the dark chocolate helps to stay in shape. The results, published in the March issue of the Journal FASEB), detail the benefits of this greediness on several markers of arterial stiffness.

A team from the University of Wageningen (Netherlands) has followed 44 men of middle age (45-70 years) and overweight. They have consumed 70g of chocolate per day on two periods of 4 weeks. Before and after the consumption of chocolate, researchers have practice a battery of test to measure indicators of vascular health. Two groups were formed: the first has received a chocolate rich in flavonol, a chemical compound to the antioxidant properties, the second a black chocolate standard. The two types of chocolate had the same cocoa content.

The flavonol there is for nothing

if the chocolate black avoids the AVC or diabetes, it is for two reasons: it restores the flexibility of arteries and prevents the adhesion of white blood cells on the artery walls. These two factors are known to promote atherosclerosis. Several markers of inflammation are also reduced by the consumption of dark chocolate, with the same results in the two groups. "We provide a more complete picture of the effects of chocolate consumption on the vascular health, and we show that increase the amount of flavonol has no additional beneficial impact. On the other hand, this increased quantity has clearly affects the taste, and therefore the motivation for eating these chocolates", explains Dr. Diederik Esser of the University of Wageningen (Netherlands) and researcher involved in the study. The bitter taste of chocolates rich in flavonol has in effect reduces the envy of taste among the participants.



"The effect of dark chocolate on our body is encouraging, not only because it allows you to have pleasure without feeling guilty, but also because it could lead to therapies with the same effect as the black chocolate with better results and more consistent. However, as long as the "chocolate black medicine" has not been invented, we are going to have to do with what nature has given us! " Analysis Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of the FASEB)Log.