By Alice Mitchell,
Project Weight Loss Editor
October 14, 2008Eating chocolate and improving your health? This is every chocolate addict’s dream. But how can that be when nutritionists prohibit sweets in their most famous diets? Well, not every type of chocolate is good for your health.
This is really not a surprise because there were previous studies which highlighted dark chocolate as an illness preventer. What makes this study and its results even more spectacular is its rapid effect. Researchers suggest that eating a piece of dark chocolate daily reduces risk of heart disease and stroke. During a two week trial, people with raised blood pressure ate for a few days white chocolate. After four days of white chocolate, specialists turned to a daily doze of dark chocolate. Every day a bar of 100 grams of chocolate and the results were surprising.
The health of the 19 Americans and Italians improved considerably. The blood pressure fell by almost three millimeters of mercury and this is a significant step because other studies revealed that blood pressure reduced by one millimeter of mercury can be a lifesaver, reducing by 2% deaths caused by cardiovascular problems.
Scientists from this study approximated that a dark chocolate diet could reduce by 6% the number of deaths caused by strokes and heart attacks. "If I had a high blood pressure I'd chose a dark chocolate bar rather than milk," said Tim Chico, a cardiologist at Sheffield University.
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