I have written three or four articles in the past about the healthy benefits of chocolate, particularly dark chocolate. Chocolate is one of the healthiest foods in the world despite what your Mommy told you when you were growing up.
I am ecstatic that I ignored for decades what I heard people say about chocolate. I have been eating lots of chocolate for lots of years — and did so long before I read that chocolate was good for you. Chocolate is so tasty that I would eat it even if it wasn't nutritious.
My past articles have detailed how chocolate is good for your blood pressure and your heart. Now, I have read the approximately 123rd article that discusses how good chocolate is for your brain. The article is too scientific to post, but below is the link, the headline and the subhead.
http://www.salon.com/2014/10/31/chocolate_is_good_for_your_brain_partner/
Chocolate is good for your brain New Alzheimer's research suggests cocoa constituents can help us fend off of senior moments
And here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago about chocolate:
Healthy benefits of chocolate
Studies since 2007 have shown that dark chocolate is so healthy that it reduces blood pressure, lowers the amount of plaque that causes atherosclerosis and reduces the risk of stroke.
Dark chocolate has these benefits because it has the same kind of antioxidants as fruits and vegetables, but other chocolates' excess calories and saturated fat can make it unhealthy in other ways.
Blood pressure
Reducing blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is one of the healthy benefits of dark chocolate.
Every person who ate dark chocolate for 18 weeks in a 2007 study conducted by Germany's University of Cologne had lower blood pressure at the end of the study. All of the dark-chocolate eaters had hypertension or upper-range prehypertension. Their average systolic blood pressure, the higher number, declined 3.3 millimeters of mercury, and their average diastolic blood pressure declined 2.3mm.
About 18 percent of the participants with hypertension at the start of the study didn't have hypertension at the end of the study.
The same study, which was published in the July 4, 2007, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, also showed that eating white chocolate for 18 weeks had no effect on blood pressure.
The article concluded that "it is likely that the cocoa flavonols in dark chocolate were responsible" for the reduced blood pressure. Flavonols are antioxidants also found in fruits, vegetables, red wine and tea.
Heart disease
Reducing heart-disease risk is another healthy benefit of dark chocolate and, to a lesser extent, a healthy benefit of other chocolates.
In a 2009 study conducted by Spain's University of Barcelona, people with a high risk of heart disease had significantly fewer "serum inflammatory biomarkers related to atherosclerosis" after drinking skimmed milk with the cocoa powder found in chocolate for four weeks.
The study, which was published in the Sept. 23, 2009, issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, concluded that cocoa helps patients with atherosclerosis, a key factor in heart disease.
In analyzing this study, the February 2010 issue of Harvard Women's Health Watch said that "pure" or dark chocolate consists of cocoa butter and nonfat cocoa solids, but processing chocolate to remove its bitter taste reduces cocoa's benefits.
Thus, dark chocolate is much healthier than other chocolates. "Make sure the first ingredient listed is cocoa or chocolate, not sugar," Health Watch says.
Strokes
Reducing strokes is another benefit of dark chocolate.
A 1993 to 2005 study of 4,369 middle-aged women conducted by Harvard University concluded that women who ate more than 9g of chocolate daily had half the risk of haemorrhagic stroke of women who ate little or no chocolate. The women in the study usually consumed dark chocolate, according to lead researcher Dr. Martin Lajous of the Harvard School of Public Health.
Lajous attributed the findings to cocoa's flavonols.
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