Eating dark chocolate in moderation (chocolate without milk) can increase the antioxidant flavonoids in the blood and prevent heart disease.
Although chocolate contains a lot of saturated fat, the saturated fat in chocolate will not raise your cholesterol level. In the past few years, researchers have found that chocolate contains steroids, which are healthy ingredients in green tea and red wine. Now many studies show that dark chocolate is particularly beneficial to people's health.
Last year, an Italian expert published a paper in the authoritative scientific magazine Nature, comparing the difference between dark chocolate and milk chocolate. The results showed that the antioxidant activity of volunteers who ate dark chocolate increased, while the antioxidant activity of people who ate milk chocolate or ate dark chocolate and drank milk fluctuated at the original level. This shows that milk may affect the absorption of steroids in chocolate.
Dark chocolate can also lower blood pressure. Last summer, two groups of German researchers published a short research report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. A group of researchers compared the effects of dark chocolate and white chocolate. White chocolate is made of cocoa butter, not cocoa. Let's not argue about whether white chocolate is a misnomer, because it doesn't contain cocoa at all. Subjects ate a small piece of chocolate every day for two weeks. After the experiment, it was found that the systolic blood pressure (high pressure) of people who ate dark chocolate was 5. 1 minute lower than that of people who ate white chocolate. Another group of German researchers found that cocoa drinks can increase the activity of nitric oxide and dilate blood vessels.
Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital affiliated to Harvard University published a paper on cocoa drinks in the Journal of Hypertension from June 5 to February 2003. Using an instrument to monitor the small changes of peripheral capillary circulation, they found that drinking four cups of cocoa every day for four days can relax blood vessels and make blood flow smooth. It is concluded that flavonoids in cocoa beans can improve vascular endothelium (innermost layer of blood vessels) and resist fat deposition and inflammation, which can cause heart disease, stroke and other vascular diseases.
Harvard researchers said that their interest in cocoa beans originated from the study of Indian aborigines. They live in panama bay's San Blas Islands. The blood pressure of these Indians does not increase with age, and few people get high blood pressure. There may be many reasons for this unusual phenomenon, but researchers have noticed that a major feature of the indigenous diet is cocoa drinks rich in steroids.
However, there are several points to note. Chocolate candy is different from chocolate. It contains a lot of sugar and fat and is high in calories. It is definitely not among the healthy foods. The reason is that most of the chocolates and cocoa beans we eat are processed to remove flavonoids and bitterness (flavonoids are slightly bitter). Now we eat chocolate just because we like it, but we hope it is healthy.