Originally published October 4 2005
Cardiovascular health can be boosted by chocolate
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Flavanols found in chocolate have proven instrumental in revitalizing the blood vessels of former smokers, reducing their chances of cardiovascular disease.
"While the long-term benefits of such improvements remain to be established, we believe that one exciting outcome of this study is the demonstration that flavanol-rich cocoa can significantly improve an important marker of cardiovascular health in a population with an established cardiovascular risk factor.
The researchers studied smokers because their blood vessels tend to respond poorly to changes in blood flow, possibly related to impairments in how nitric oxide sends signals to the inner lining, the endothelium, of blood vessels.
A dozen smokers (six men and six women) in their early 30s, who did not have any known health problems, were enrolled in the double-blind crossover study to compare the effects of a cocoa drink rich in flavanols to a cocoa drink that tasted the same, but contained very low levels of flavanols.
Circulating nitric oxide levels and blood vessel responses (flow-mediated dilation) were measured before drinking the cocoa and again two hours later.
"Taken together, these findings support the notion that flavanol-rich foods, including cocoa products, may help to promote cardiovascular health," Dr. Kelm said.
The researchers pointed out that the cocoa drink they used was specially processed to retain much higher levels of flavanols than are typically found in commercially-available cocoa drinks; so it is unlikely that drinking more hot chocolate would produce a similar effect.
"Therefore, we feel that there exists an increasing body of evidence for an acute effect of flavanol-rich foods on vascular reactivity.
Nevertheless, the conclusion drawn from these results have to be interpreted with caution, because it is not known whether or not the chronic consumption of flavanol-rich foods leads to sustained increases in endothelial function, and the prevention of future cardiovascular events.
In particular in smokers, it is unlikely that cocoa can completely attenuate the deleterious effects of continued smoking," Dr. Heiss said.
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