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Chocolate Can Do Good Things for Your Heart, Skin and Brain
By Marjorie Ingall
Health.com
Listen to the way people malign chocolate: Sinful! Decadent! To die for!
There's even that popular restaurant dessert known as "Death by Chocolate." But
is this any way to talk about a loved one -- especially during the season of
comfort and joy?
Bite your tongue! Evidence is mounting that some kinds of chocolate are
actually good for you. Here's the latest about the healthy side of your
chocolate habit and taste-tested advice on what to try. Merry munching.
A happier heart
Scientists at the Harvard University School of Public Health recently
examined 136 studies on coco -- the foundation for chocolate -- and found it
does seem to boost heart health, according to an article in the European journal
Nutrition and Metabolism.
"Studies have shown heart benefits from increased blood flow, less platelet
stickiness and clotting, and improved bad cholesterol," says Mary B. Engler,
Ph.D., a chocolate researcher and director of the Cardiovascular and Genomics
Graduate Program at the University of California, San Francisco, School of
Nursing. These benefits are the result of cocoa's antioxidant chemicals known as
flavonoids, which seem to prevent both cell damage and inflammation.
Better blood pressure
If yours is high, chocolate may help. Jeffrey Blumberg, Ph.D., director of
the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at Tufts University, recently found that
hypertensive people who ate 3.5 ounces of dark chocolate per day for two weeks
saw their blood pressure drop significantly, according to an article in the
journal Hypertension. Their bad cholesterol dropped, too.
People who ate the same amount of white chocolate? Nothing. (It doesn't have any
cocoa -- or flavonoids.) Word to the wise: 3.5 ounces is roughly equal to a big
bar of baking chocolate, so the participants had to cut about 400 calories out
of their daily diets to make room. But you probably don't have to go to those
lengths. Just a bite may do you good, Blumberg says.
Muscle magic
Chocolate milk may help you recover after a hard workout. In a small study at
Indiana University, elite cyclists who drank chocolate milk between workouts
scored better on fatigue and endurance tests than those who had some sports
drinks. Yoo-hoo!
TLC for your skin
German researchers gave 24 women a half-cup of special
extra-flavonoid-enriched cocoa every day. After three months, the women's skin
was moister, smoother, and less scaly and red when exposed to ultraviolet light.
The researchers think the flavonoids, which absorb UV light, help protect and
increase blood flow to the skin, improving its appearance.
Brain gains
 It sounds almost too good to be true, but preliminary research at West
Virginia's Wheeling Jesuit University suggests chocolate may boost your memory,
attention span, reaction time, and problem-solving skills by increasing blood
flow to the brain. Chocolate companies found comparable gains in similar
research on healthy young women and on elderly people.
Good loving (maybe)
Finally, Italian researchers wanted to know whether chocolate truly is an
aphrodisiac. In a survey of 143 women published in the Journal of Sexual
Medicine, those who ate chocolate every day seemed to have more sex drive,
better lubrication, and an easier time reaching orgasm. Pass the Godiva,
right?
Not so fast. The women who ate chocolate were all younger than the ones who
didn't; it was age and not chocolate that made the difference. Still, if a
double-chocolate raspberry truffle puts you in the mood, why let science get in
the way?
New York--based writer Marjorie Ingall loves milk
chocolate but says she's ready to go dark this year
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