milk chocolate

Dark chocolate might heal your beating heart? 5 Heart-healthy benefits of dark chocolate

Last Updated on Heart Disease

Antioxidants are abundant in dark chocolate, which helps to prevent heart disease.

Dark chocolate is a heart-healthy chocolate treat if it isn’t filled with sugar and saturated fat. It is a complete powerhouse of daily vitamins and minerals that could help with brain, immunity, skin, etc too.

Antioxidants are abundant in dark chocolate, which helps to prevent heart disease. It has been shown in studies to help lower blood pressure and heart disease risk.

What is good in dark chocolate?

dark chocolate bars

The most common flavonoid found in cocoa and chocolate is flavanol. In addition to their antioxidant properties, flavanols have been shown to have various vascular health benefits. These flavanols can help blood arteries become more elastic, enhance insulin sensitivity, decrease platelet “stickiness,” and lower blood pressure.

Combine your love of dark chocolate with a healthy lifestyle for maximum benefit. Find out how the delicious dark chocolate can strengthen your immunity.

Dark chocolate has the highest amount of cocoa flavanols. It is advised to stick with minimally processed dark chocolate bars that are at least 70 percent cocoa to obtain the most flavanols but make sure to limit your proportions.

Which chocolate is better?

dark chocolate vs milk or white chocolate

The larger the percentage of cocoa solids, the more cocoa flavanols are present, and so the bitter flavor is also increasing. You only need a bite or so every day to gain cardiovascular benefits.

Because most beneficial components, including flavanols, are removed during processing, white chocolate has no flavanols and is produced entirely of cocoa butter, sugar, and milk, and does not exhibit the same health benefits as dark chocolate.

How much chocolate is beneficial?

The optimal “dose” of chocolate to achieve cardiovascular benefits is unknown. However, the studies that have found a heart-health benefit from chocolate have generally used a range of 100 grams of chocolate per day to the consumption of “more than one chocolate a week”.

The majority of researchers who have examined this issue have concluded that the majority of the benefit can be obtained by eating chocolate once or twice a week.

The Downside

There are several potential drawbacks to including chocolate in your diet in order to reap cardiovascular benefits. These include the following:

  • Notably, 100 grams of chocolate has a caloric content of approximately 500cal. Thus, adding 100 grams of chocolate to your daily diet (the maximum dose recommended by available research) results in a weekly weight gain of about a pound. This outcome might not appear to be heart-healthy.

In a few population studies, high cocoa and chocolate consumption have been linked to a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Cocoa consumption was linked to lower blood pressure and overall cardiovascular mortality, according to a sub-study of a population from the Zutphen Elderly Study[1]Buijsse B, Feskens EJ, Kok FJ, et al. Cocoa intake, blood pressure, and cardiovascular mortality: the Zutphen Elderly Study. Arch Intern Med. 2006;166:411–417. [PubMed] [Google Scholar].

During an Italian case-control study, the risk of heart attack was found to be inversely related to chocolate consumption.

Those who consumed more than three servings of chocolate per day saw a 77 percent reduction in risk when comparing to those who consumed less than one[2]Gallus S, Tavani A, La Vecchia C. Response to Chocolate, well-being and health among elderly men: chocolate and acute myocardial infarction in a case-control study from Italy. Eur J Clin Nutr. … Continue reading.

In a 2017 study, researchers found that eating raw almonds, dark chocolate, and cocoa helped reduce “bad” LDL cholesterol in overweight or obese individuals.

Other studies demonstrate that dark chocolate can help in:

  • making platelets in the blood less sticky (able to form clots, which can lead to heart attack or stroke);
  • processing nitric oxide (aids in improving blood flow throughout the body including the brain);
  • lowering the risk of insulin resistance, which lowers the risk of diabetes; and, controlling chronic inflammation (which can result in heart disease).

In 2011, the British Medical Journal published a meta-analysis of seven studies demonstrating that chocolate consumption was associated with a 37% reduction in cardiovascular disease and a 29% reduction in stroke.

A 2015 analysis of 21,000 adults in the EPIC-Norfolk research (UK) discovered that those who consumed the most chocolate had an 11% reduced risk of coronary artery disease and a 25% lower risk of cardiovascular death over 12 years than those who did not consume chocolate.

References[+]