By Mark Young, SouthFloridaReporter.com Managing Editor, June 16, 2015 – June 16, 2015 – Like many of you, when I saw this headline I did a double take and said “can this be true?” I mean I could hear my doctors saying, you can’t have chocolate, it’s not good for you, blah, blah, blah….and then this news. For chocoholics (I’m just an ordinary chocolate lover) of the world, it should have been a “BREAKING NEWS” or “NEWS ALERT” headline. Instead, this article was buried among the many stories I scan every morning looking for items to add to this website – I almost dropped my tablet. Here, you read on while I map out when I’ll have my first chocolate bar today:
“By Sarah Knapton, Science Editor, The Telegraph – It is the ultimate comfort food which is known to produce the same chemical in the brain as falling in love.
But now scientists have shown that chocolate need no longer be a guilty pleasure after finding that eating up to two bars a day appears to protect against heart disease and stroke.
Although dark chocolate has long been known to have health benefits, the new study found that milk chocolate may also provide valuable nutrients which lower the chance of heart problems.
It is the latest research to highlight the value of the treat. Previously chocolate have been shown to reduce memory loss, prevent diabetes, reduce stress, protect the skin against sun damage and lower cholesterol.
To find out if it was beneficial for the heart researchers at the University of Aberdeen looked at the snacking habits of 21,000 people over 12 years.
They found that eating up to 100g of chocolate every day lowered the risk of dying from heart disease during that time by 25 per cent. The chance of suffering a stroke also fell by 23 per cent.
Professor Phyo Myint, Chair in Old Age Medicine at Aberdeen University, said: “Cumulative evidence suggests that higher chocolate intake is associated with a lower risk of future cardiovascular events.
“This may indicate that not only flavonoids, but also other compounds, possibly related to milk constituents, such as calcium and fatty acids, may provide an explanation for the observed association.”
The researchers also carried out a review of the available published evidence on the links between chocolate and cardiovascular disease, involving almost 158,000 people.
In each of the relevant studies they found a significantly lower risk stroke and heart disease associated with regular chocolate consumption. (ED NOTE: keep reading it gets better)”
