Healthcare

During analysis in more than 30,000 members of the Swedish Mammography Cohort whereas controlled for other foods intake, exercise levels, body mass index, family medical history, and other potential influences to the risk of heart failure, the researchers said that women who reported a monthly chocolate intake of 1 to 3 servings and by 32% who said ate one or two servings per week, both had significant declined for the risk of heart failure by totally 26%.

However, the researchers added that women who reported eating chocolate more often than twice a week didn’t show a reduced heart-failure risk.
The observed senior author, Dr Murray A Mittleman from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, said, “Chocolate still comes with a fair amount of calories from sugar and fat, which can be problematic.”

According to the authors, they controlled for total calorie intake, so that means for women who were eating larger amounts of chocolate, it was displacing other foods that might be beneficial, such as fruits and vegetables.

The study results reported in August 17, 2010 in Circulation.
In their report, they write, “We think the data are suggesting that if you’re going to have a treat, chocolate is a reasonable choice because it appears to have these beneficial effects, as long as you are careful not to overindulge.”

Of course, any benefits depends on the type of chocolate. The flavanols in chocolate believed to confer cardiovascular benefits are concentrated in the cocoa solids (pure chocolate minus the cocoa butter). Greater the cocoa content, the better are chocolate’s health effects.
Overwhelmingly, according to Dr. Mittleman, the chocolate, but in accordance with European standards, its cocoa content is likely to be about 30%. It can therefore be richer in flavanols than some dark chocolate in the US, which is allowed to contain as little as 15% cocoa solids.

Dr. Mittleman acknowledged, “The caveat with this kind of study, of course, is that it’s observational.”
He added, “It was a prospective cohort study, whereas a number of the short-term studies [showing chocolate effects] on blood pressure were randomized. Having said that, we were able to adjust for a lot of things.”

However, according to Dr. Mittleman, “it would be important to get the data in men to be certain,” although “there are data that show the effect of chocolate on blood pressure and other vascular markers are similar in men and women, so there’s no strong reason to believe the effects [seen in this study] would be any different in men.”