Finally?a prescription we WANT to take! Eating about 30 calories a day of dark chocolate is associated with a lowering of blood pressure, without weight gain or other adverse effects. And scientists now insist that chocolate isn’t REALLY addictive.
Previous research has indicated that consumption of high amounts of cocoa-containing foods can lower blood pressure, due to the action of the an ingredient called polyphenol in the cocoa. But it may not be effective enough to offset the high sugar, fat and calorie intake of most cocoa products (problems that Anne Strieber’s hot cocoa recipe for dieters has solved!)
Researchers fed volunteers either dark chocolate or white chocolate (which contains no polyphenols) for a year and found that the people who ate the dark chocolate DID have lower blood pressure.
In LiveScience.com, Robert Roy Britt insists that scientific studies do not show any evidence that chocolate is addictive. He quotes British researcher Peter Rogers as saying that the ingredients in chocolate that are supposed to be addictive, such as serotonin, tryptophan, phenylethylamine, tyramine and cannabinoids, can be found in higher concentrations in other foods that we like a lot less than chocolate.
Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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