(dailyRx)
Just when you thought a healthy lifestyle meant eating nuts, fruits, and vegetables, medical manna has come straight down from heaven. Move over veggies, Momma needs her chocolate!
Many new studies have answered the question posed for decades: How could something that feels so good be so bad for you? Well, it can’t. Chocolate tastes divine, lowers cholesterol and adjusts blood pressure as well. Those three qualities make chocolate the new triple threat.
Eric L. Ding, an instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and one of the researchers of this review comments that implications are that darker chocolate is probably better than milk chocolate or white chocolate in terms of your health.
Ding also cautions that commercial dark chocolate often only is around 60 percent dark and is not the same as the chocolate used in these studies. The researchers conclude eating chocolate in moderation will provide health benefits.
Nothing, not even chocolate, consumed in excess, is good for yor health.
This review corroborates many findings about the cholesterol-lowering abilities of dark chocolate. In another study, Midori Natsume, Ph.D., and colleagues note that studies have shown that cocoa, reduces the risk of heart disease by boosting levels of HDL, the good cholesterol, and decreases levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), bad cholesterol.
The reason? A blend of antioxidant compounds in cocoa called polyphenols, which are found in abundance in dark chocolate.
Over 40 million Americans have high cholesterol, and over 60 million more are close to developing it. Cholesterol is an essential molecule for humans, responsible for many metabolic processes like liver function, making hormones, and keeping cells intact.
However, too much cholesterol can lead to it building up and depositing in the walls of arteries, which is a risk for heart attack, stroke, and occluding blood flow to other organs such as the kidneys and bowels. High cholesterol is due to environmental and genetic factors.