Chocolate protects against heart attacks

Chocolate lowers the heart attack risk. For this, however, the amount is crucial.

(18.08.2010) Chocolate is good for the heart and can prevent heart attacks, but the amount is crucial. An international team of researchers has found this out in a long-term study involving around 32,000 Swedes between the ages of 48 and 83, and has now published its findings in the latest issue of the US journal „Circulation: Heart Failure“ released.

For nine years, researchers led by Murray Mittleman from Harvard University in Boston have studied how chocolate consumption affects women's hearts. Thus, for women who consume one to two times a week a serving of about 19-30 grams of high-quality chocolate, the risk of heart failure decreases by 32 percent. In addition to the quantity that can not be exceeded, the cocoa content of chocolate is decisive. Cocoa contains flavonoids as a plant pigment, which reduce the elasticity of the blood vessel pacifiers and reduce blood pressure, says study director Murray Mittleman. However, exceeding the amount (up to 60 grams) did away with the positive effects of chocolate consumption, which is attributed to Mittleman's additional caloric intake and subsequent weight gain.

Professor Linda van Horn, a professor at Northwestern University, Chicago, who also participates in the study, equally emphasizes that the results of the study are merely meaningful, „that small amounts of dark chocolate can be good for your health.“ Excessive chocolate consumption is still harmful.

Similar results came at the beginning of the year from a long-term study of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) from Potsdam, in which around 20,000 people from all over Europe participated. Here it also became clear that men benefit equally from the consumption of chocolate as women. In addition to the results presented, there are some other positive side effects of chocolate consumption, such as: B. Protection against cancer, depression and high blood pressure, which have been studied in a variety of previous studies. (Fp)

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