A Square of Chocolate a Day Linked to Lower Risk of Heart Attack and Stroke
By Jennifer Warner
WebMD Health NewsReviewed by Laura J. Martin, MDMarch 30, 2010 -- Just in time for the Easter Bunny’s arrival, researchers have more sweet news about chocolate and heart disease.
A new study suggests that eating a small piece of chocolate every day may reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke.
Researchers in Germany say that people who ate the equivalent of one square of a 100 gram (3.5 oz) chocolate bar per day had a 39% lower risk of having heart attack or stroke than people who ate much less chocolate.
But before you stock up on chocolate Easter eggs, researchers warn that the key to reaping the health benefits of chocolate is moderation. A single 100-gram bar of chocolate contains about 500 calories, and eating too much can contribute to unhealthy weight gain.
“Small amounts of chocolate may help to prevent heart disease, but only if it replaces other energy-dense food, such as snacks, in order to keep body weight stable,” researcher Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Nuthetal, Germany, says in a news release.
i thought this was pretty interesting but as it says just like with many things the key is moderation.
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If this article was published when I was a bit younger, it would have been a good excuse to eat chocolate. It's definitely interesting though how researchers find these neat things that you might thought to be the furthest thing from helping the problem but actually maybe even thinking it could cause some problems. However, like Garry said, moderation is key and might be a problem for some.
ReplyDeleteI think its cool that chocolate can help make you healthier!
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