The Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate - an article by Dr Frances Pitsilis
Personal & Corporate Physician MB, BS Dip Obst, Dip Occup Med, MACNEM, FRNZCGP
Consuming just the right amount of dark chocolate reduces cardiac risk. Many people think that something that tastes this good cannot possibly be good for you, however, a new Italian study published in October 2008 in the Journal of Nutrition, has shown that consuming just the right amount of dark chocolate reduces cardiac risk. About 11000 people were studied and of those, about 5000 ate dark chocolate. They worked out that the right amount is 20g of dark chocolate is 2-3 times a week. They found that this reduced the CRP level by 17% - CRP is a risk marker for heart disease. Therefore, this is the equivalent of reducing cardiac risk by 26% in men and 33% in women. In addition, we know that what is good for the heart is good for the brain, so reducing your CRP also means that you are reducing inflammation in other parts of your body.
Beware that eating more than this amount of dark chocolate doesn’t work. And it has to be dark chocolate – that’s 70g of cocoa or more.
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