Can Dark Chocolate Really Work on Lowering Blood Pressure Levels?

By: Allison Thompson
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:17:53
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Although this may seem like a joke to many, a study has been carried out in the US and published in the Journal of the American Heart Association regarding lowering your blood pressure levels by eating dark chocolate. It has been found that one bar of dark chocolate is more than enough to lower a persons blood pressure in a natural and enjoyable way and it also been found that it helps to improve the bodies insulin resistance.

It has already been discovered that foods which are rich in flavinols are great for lowering blood pressure. Flavinols are known in the medical fields as a natural antioxidant and things that we already consume containing these antioxidants are tea and red wine and from now dark chocolate can be added to the list.

The study that was carried out at the University of L’Aguila in Italy was pretty simple and was being specially researched to find ways of lowering people’s blood pressure, so this wasn’t an accidental discovery. There were 20 people who participated in the study, 10 men, 10 women and all of them were suffering from high blood pressure. The people taking part were not taking any particular medications or following any specific treatments for helping to reduce their blood pressures. They also did not suffer from any other diseases and none of them smoked. To ensure that this experiment was correctly run so that the results would show a visible lowering of the participant’s blood pressure they were asked to not have any chocolate for 2 weeks.

They first divided up the 20 people into two groups, one group was asked to consume dark chocolate whilst the other had to consume white chocolate only. The amount they consumed each day was the same (3.5oz daily) and which they ate for 15 days. There was then a weeks break with them not consuming any flavinol foods during that week and then the next week the two groups swapped the type of chocolate they were to consume (those eating white would eat dark, and those eating dark would eat white). It was found that the white chocolate was the perfect control food for this study as it contained all the same ingredients as the dark chocolate except for the flavinol.

It was found that there was a significant lowering of the blood pressure in the group who consumed the dark chocolate for 15 days and none at all in the group eating the white chocolate. It was also found that the treatment not only helped to lower blood pressure, but there was a reduction in insulin resistance of the group eating dark chocolate as well. Also they found that cholesterol levels were decreased in this group by 10% also. But the group which was eating the white chocolate shows no signs of either the blood pressure or cholesterol levels lowering, in fact they stayed the same as at the beginning of the study.

Although the best and natural ways of lowering blood pressure is still and exercise and improve your diet and removing all non-natural and medications from your diet. But none of this can be replaced by just eating dark chocolate, in fact it is recommended that you eat a small bar of dark chocolate occasionally as it is rich in flavinols which help to lower blood pressure, Don’t forget it tastes great and is also helping your heart.

Allison Thompson a work from home mum living in Spain who has set up this site dedicated to all things relating to chocolate, both the good and the bad. If you would like to know more then please visit http://www.chocolate.whatshewants.info.

Article source: Expert Articles

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