http://news.health.

com/2012/03/29/chocolate-a-sweet-remedy-for-many-ills/ THURSDAY, March 29 (HealthDay News) International researchers have uncovered eve n more healthy properties of flavanols the antioxidants found in cocoa beans. Eighteen chocolate-centered studies including investigations of how cocoa might affect blood pressure, heart disease, painful nerve disorders and cancer risk we re to be presented Wednesday at the American Chemical Societys annual meeting in San Diego.

Some caveats: Most of the studies have not yet been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, so those findings are preliminary. Many studies were al so small in scope, with relatively few participants. And some were animal studie s, and results might not translate to humans. While larger, observational studies have shown possible health benefits from dar k chocolate or cocoa, this new research begins to explore how those benefits occ ur, explained Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles. The thing to keep in mind: All of these are very small studies, Fonarow said. But t hey are important steps in investigating the mechanisms by which chocolate or co coa may have beneficial cardiovascular effects. Several of the studies suggested that cocoa might protect against inflammation. One of the presumed mechanisms by which cocoa or dark chocolate could be benefici al, or flavonoids in general, is through the mechanism of decreasing vascular in flammation, part of the process leading to strokes and heart attack, Fonarow note d. For instance, in a study involving obese mice, researchers found that adding coc oa to their high-fat diet slowed down their weight gain. The mice have elevated body fat, fasting blood glucose and serum insulin levels. And they have markers for systemic inflammation, said study author Joshua Lambert , an assistant professor of food science at Pennsylvania State University. After supplementing the animals diets with cocoa, we saw that these markers of sys temic inflammation went back down to the same level as they would be in mice tha t were on a low-fat diet, Lambert said. So it seems like were able to take this inf lammatory response and reduce it back to the level you see in lean mice. In another study from Italy, 40 people, half of whom were smokers, were randomly assigned to receive either dark chocolate or milk chocolate. Dark chocolate onl y was found to reduce oxidative stress involved in dangerous clot formation and on ly in smokers. The results, suggesting that dark chocolate can reduce oxidative stress and subse quent disease in smokers are intriguing and certainly worthy of further study, sa id Dr. Thomas Glynn, director of cancer science and trends and international can cer control for the American Cancer Society. The authors establish the biological plausibility of antioxidant effects of dark chocolate in a small [group] of smokers and demonstrate the potential harm-reduc ing effects for smokers of eating dark chocolate, Glynn said.

But, he added, great caution is necessary, however, in interpreting the results o f studies regarding the possible health benefits of dark chocolate none of the e vidence to date is definitive and is based on small studies with limited time du ration. No one, despite the enjoyment of dark chocolate, should consider using i t as a substitute for healthy eating, getting exercise and above all, stopping s moking. Also being presented at the meeting is a meta-analysis of human research on coco a flavonoids and cardiac risk factors. The analysis, which combined data from 24 studies on 1,106 people, appeared in the Journal of Nutrition last September. Cocoa lowered blood pressure, lowered LDL [ bad ] cholesterol, raised HDL cholest erol the good cholesterol and improved insulin resistance, said senior study auth or Eric Ding, a nutritionist, epidemiologist and faculty member at Harvard Medic al School. He said cocoa also might have a role in dilating vessels to improve b lood flow. http://adampaulgreen.com/xocai-cocoa-is-sweet-remedy-for-...

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