CHICAGO (AP) — Here’s some good and bad news for chocoholics: Dark chocolate seems to lower blood pressure, but it requires an amount less than two Hershey’s Kisses to do it, a small study suggests.
The new research from Germany adds to mounting evidence linking dark chocolate with health benefits, but it’s the first to suggest that just a tiny amount may suffice.
Volunteers for the study ate just over 6 grams of dark chocolate daily for almost five months — one square from a German chocolate bar called Ritter Sport, equal to about 1½ Hershey’s Kisses. People who ate that amount ended up with lower blood pressure readings than those who ate white chocolate.
University of Cologne researcher Dr. Dirk Taubert, the study’s lead author, said the blood pressure reductions with dark chocolate were small but still substantial enough to potentially reduce cardiovascular disease risks, although study volunteers weren’t followed long enough to measure that effect.
The research involved just 44 persons ages 56 through 73, but the results echo other small studies of cocoa-containing foods. Cocoa contains flavanols, plant-based compounds that also are credited with giving red wine its heart-healthy benefits.
One problem is chocolate bars containing cocoa tend to have lots of calories, so Dr. Taubert and his colleagues tested small amounts containing just 30 calories each.
The study appears in the latest issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. It was funded by University Hospital in Cologne.
The results are interesting but need to be duplicated in larger, more ethnically diverse populations, said Dr. Laura Svetkey, director of Duke University’s Hypertension Center.
She stressed that the results should not be viewed as license to gorge on chocolate.
“I would be as happy as the next person if I got to eat more chocolate,” she said, but cautioned that weight gain from eating large amounts of dark chocolate would counteract any benefits on blood pressure.
Study participants were otherwise healthy and mostly normal-weight German adults with mild high blood pressure or pre-hypertension, which includes readings between 120 over 80 and 139 over 89.
Average blood pressure at the start was about 147 over 86.
Every day for 18 weeks, the volunteers were instructed to eat one-square portions of a 16-square Ritter Sport bar, or a similar portion of white chocolate. White chocolate doesn’t contain cocoa.
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