More Reasons to Eat Dark Chocolate

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Can eating dark chocolate help lower your blood pressure? Studies reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine and Journal of the American Medical Association suggest the answer is "yes!"

Cocoa-rich dark chocolate may be as good at lowering blood pressure as some medications, according to two studies. But tea -- green or black -- doesn’t seem to have any significant effect.

A meta-analysis looked at 10 trials that studied the effects of polyphenol-rich tea and cocoa on blood pressure levels. The tea studies revealed no significant effect on blood pressure. But the cocoa studies found that people who ate 50–100 g of dark chocolate a day for two weeks had an average blood pressure decrease of 5/3 mm Hg.

In the second study, cocoa lowered blood pressure in 44 adults with untreated pre-hypertension or mild hypertension who received 6 g a day of dark chocolate or a matching amount of polyphenol-free white chocolate for 18 weeks.

Those eating dark chocolate had an average drop in blood pressure of 3/2 mm Hg, without any change in weight or cholesterol levels. This is one dietary change most people won’t have trouble making.

But beware: Chocolate is high in calories and eating too much can cause weight gain, which could undo cocoa’s blood pressure–lowering effect. So stick with the 6-g dose (0.25 oz) used in the second study; it was nearly as effective and contains only 30 calories.

[These studies were reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine (Volume 167, page 626) and the Journal of the American Medical Association (Volume 298, page 49).]