Dark chocolate your heart to health?

September 4th, 2008 by Wendy Young | Filed under Healthy Living, Nutrition, Women's Health.

Apparently it works. And fast. A two-week diet of daily dark chocolate (a chunk or two, not a bar or two) can show immediate results in your health.

Recent research has shown that in just this short amount of time, the dark chocolate can improve both blood pressure and diabetes risk, both of which are risk factors in heart disease.

Other recent studies have found dark chocolate can protect blood vessels against damage from diabetes and could even hold the key to stopping bowel cancer in its tracks.

The study showed starkly that dark chocolate is the only chocolate that has these benefits. They key is in a compound in the cocoa beans: flavanols. White chocolate doesn’t contain any of this highly-beneficial ingredient and milk chocolate doesn’t contain enough.

As with everything good, you can have too much. Everything in moderation and you can enjoy just about anything, with great health benefits as a nice perk!