a correlation between dark chocolate and good health has been established

If you crave a bar of chocolate every now and then you should read the following. A new study done by scientists in Italy and America on a number of men and women who suffer from high blood pressure saw that there was a beneficial effect of chocolate on blood pressure levels.

In all the nineteen volunteers all of whom suffered from hypertension were given firstly 100 grams a day of white chocolate for a two week time period, and then for a further two weeks they were told to swap the white chocolate with 100 grams of dark chocolate.
After the first two week period blood pressure levels and cholesterol levels were unchanged however after the second trial period following the eating of dark chocolate there were significant reductions in blood pressure.

The scientists said that on average the blood pressure levels dropped by 3mm of mercury, and that it has been previously noted that even a 1mm drop in mercury levels can lower the chances of death from heart disease by two percent.

This is not the first time that a correlation between dark chocolate and good health has been established and it appears that the reason is due to flavanols which are present in big quantities in dark chocolate, (but not in other types of chocolate). Flavanols are very powerful antioxidants which greatly assist the body in the regeneration of cells and generally are conducive to good health.

This research doesn’t mean that you can go out and eat as much chocolate as you like but if you do suffer from high blood pressure maybe you should speak to your doctor about introducing a little bit of very dark chocolate into your diet every day.

High blood pressure can be extremely damaging to the health over the long term and cause not only heart attacks but also a whole list of other health complications.