Giving and receiving chocolate is a Valentine’s tradition that everyone enjoys. Choosing the right chocolate will not only give pleasure but benefit your loved one’s heart and stress levels and your own as well.
Antioxidants in Dark Chocolate and Cocoa Protect the Heart
Pure chocolate, made from cocoa beans, is rich in flavanol, an antioxidant that may help protect arteries from damage, maintain healthy blood flow and fend off heart disease.
Dark chocolate and cocoa powder contain the highest levels of flavanol. A Swedish study published in 2009 showed that people who ate chocolate regularly over the 12 months before their first heart attack, recovered better than patients who never or seldom ate chocolate.
“Chocolate consumption was associated with lower cardiac mortality in a dose dependent manner in patients free of diabetes surviving their first AMI (heart attack),” the researchers from the Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, reported.
While the chocolate eaters enjoyed better cardiac health, participants in the study who didn’t eat chocolate but ate other kinds of confectionery, gained no benefit.
The benefits of eating chocolate lasted up to eight years, the researchers noted, and this could be due to the fact that that eating dark chocolate hs been shown to lower blood pressure.
Eating Chocolate Helps Manage Emotional Stress
Many people claim that eating chocolate releases stress, and a new study appears to back that up. Published in the January 4, 2010 edition of the Journal of Proteome Research, the study showed that eating about an ounce and a half of dark chocolate a day for two weeks reduced levels of stress hormones in highly stressed people.
Sunil Kochhar and colleagues from the Nestlé Research Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Metanomics Health GmbH in Berlin, Germany, studied the metabolic responses of 30 people to a daily consumption of 40 g of dark chocolate for up to 14 days.
Dr. Kochar said researchers knew from other studies that antioxidants and other beneficial substances in dark chocolate may reduce risk factors for heart disease and other physical conditions, and that chocolate may ease emotional stress.
But there was little evidence from research in humans on exactly how chocolate might have those stress-busting effects.
Small Amount of Chocolate Works for Stress Busting
The participants were divided into those with low and high anxiety levels using validated psychological questionnaires. All were given the same small quantity of dark chocolate each day.
During the 14-day trial, blood and urine samples were taken from all participants on three test days at the beginning, in the middle and at the end.
Changes in participants' metabolic responses due to chocolate consumption were analysed, including their hormone levels, energy homeostasis (the balance between energy from the diet and energy used by activity) and gut microbial activity.
The people with higher anxiety levels showed a distinct metabolic profile indicative of a different energy homeostasis, hormonal metabolism and gut microbial activity after eating chocolate, the researchers noted.
“Dark chocolate reduced the urinary excretion of the stress hormone cortisol and catecholamines, and partially normalized the stress-related differences in energy metabolism and gut microbial activities,” they reported.
“The study provides strong evidence that a daily consumption of 40 grams [1.4 ounces] during a period of two weeks is sufficient to modify the metabolism of healthy human volunteers.”
Dark Chocolate is the Key
All the studies looking at the beneficial effects of chocolate have been based on dark chocolate. Dark chocolate and cocoa powder contain the highest levels of flavanol and other antioxidants, apparently responsible for the heart protective and stress-busting effects.
But these health benefits are reduced considerably when pure chocolate is processed and ingredients such as sugar, milk and butter are added, as is the case in most candies and candy bars.
Not only that, but the extra fat and sugar levels can contribute to unwanted weight gain.
However, there are good brands of organic, fair trade dark chocolate available, including ones containing up to 80% cocoa. Consuming these would not only improve the health of those who receive such gifts, but assist the economic health of the growers and producers of organic dark chocolate and cocoa.
Cocoa itself is full of antioxidants, and while it might be rather dull just to drink hot cocoa on Valentine’s Day, hot chocolate made with real dark chocolate is a dreamy, melt-in the mouth sensation that could enhance your healthy Valentine’s celebration.
You might also be interested to read Can Eating Chocolate Relieve Emotional Stress?, Chocolate Could Protect Against Heart Attacks,and Hot Cocoa’s Antioxidant Power.
Sue Cartledge - I'm a science, health, nutrition and lifestyle journalist, fascinated by the way the physical world operates in all its forms, and how ...
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