The authors found that women older than 70 who ate chocolate at least once a week were 35% less likely to be hospitalised or die from heart disease over the course of the study, and nearly 60% less likely to be hospitalised or die from heart failure.
What’s nice, says study author Dr Joshua Lewis told Reuters Health, is that women didn’t have to eat a tonne of chocolate to see benefits.
“We would therefore caution against people eating foods with high sugar and fat regularly and believe our findings support moderate rather than frequent chocolate consumption,” said Lewis, based at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Australia.
This isn’t the first study to tout chocolate’s potential benefits. In 2008, Italian researchers found that eating dark chocolate regularly may help lower levels of inflammation, which is strongly associated with heart and blood vessel disease.
The previous year, another study showed that foods rich in antioxidants known as flavonoids (including dark chocolate, apples and red wine) may help shield postmenopausal women from coronary heart disease, cardiovascular disease and stroke.
Flavonoids are thought to reduce the risk of heart disease, the leading cause of death in many industrialised countries, by helping to increase nitric oxide, which in turn helps boost the functioning of blood vessels and lower blood pressure.
Source: Reuters Health
© FoodBev Media Ltd 2024