Seven health benefits of dark chocolate
Add a few squares of dark chocolate to your daily diet and reap health benefits.
Dark chocolate protects your heart
It encourages the growth of good microbes in the gut, which produce compounds that act as anti-inflammatories. They enter the bloodstream and help to protect the heart and arteries from damage. Flavanols also have a similar effect to a type of drug called ACE inhibitors, which help to lower blood pressure. This also helps to cut your chances of having a stroke.
Image: Sevak Babakhani/ bauersyndication.com.au
It improves mental ability
Flavanols widen blood vessels and increase blood flow to the brain, which improves your ability to think clearly.
Image: Robin Hearfield/ bauersyndication.com.au
It stops you from feeling hungry
Dark chocolate decreases levels of ghrelin, the hormone that stimulates appetite. Volunteers in a Danish trial who ate chocolate containing 70% cocoa solids went on to eat nearly 20% fewer calories at an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet, compared with people who ate milk chocolate.
Image: Rob Taylor/ bauersyndication.com.au
It makes you less stressed
Dark chocolate can help ease anxiety. One study found that when people who described themselves as prone to being anxious ate dark chocolate every day for two weeks, levels of stress hormones in their blood dropped significantly. In another trial, volunteers who ate seven grams of high cocoa chocolate a day reported feeling far more serene after a month.
Image: Dave Wheeler/ bauersyndication.com.au
It may improve cholesterol
In one trial, ratios of good HDL cholesterol – compared to bad LDL cholesterol – improved in people who ate around 5g of dark chocolate a day.
Image: Sevak Babakhani/ bauersyndication.com.au
It lowers insulin
When mice were fed the human equivalent of 10 tablespoons of low-sugar, low-fat cocoa powder every day, their insulin levels dropped to a third less than the mice in the trial that didn’t eat cocoa powder. Research is still ongoing, but scientists says humans are likely to notice similar benefits.
Image: Jasmine Poole/ bauersyndication.com.au
It can improve your skin
German researchers found women who drank a high-flavanol cocoa drink every morning for 12 weeks had better blood flow to their skin, which they noticed was thicker, more moist and less scaly than before the experiment started.
Image: bauersyndication.com.au
But before you pig out...
Make sure it contains at least 70% cocoa solids. Don’t kid yourself that all chocolate has the same health benefits. And only have one or two squares a day. It’s energy dense, so eating a lot can contribute to weight gain.
Image: bauersyndication.com.au
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