Dark chocolate has benefits, but be careful

A new study shows potential that consumption of dark chocolate could be an effective strategy for prevention of cardiovascular events in high risk patients, due to it’s blood pressure lowering and lipid effects. How cool is that you might be thinking, let’s run out and overload on dark chocolate to prevent a heart attack or stroke. Hold on not so fast my friend!

Just as with any research we need to look at it critically and in context of other research of what we already know. First this study only was found effective for high risk patients, those with metabolic syndrome that were not diabetic. Obviously if you have diabetes you need to control your sugar/carbohydrate intake appropriately and taking extra dark chocolate will probably not help that. Also if you are not a high risk cardiovascular person, the extra dark chocolate will not reduce your risk, so you get no added benefit. Additionally we know that frequent chocolate consumption can lead to increased BMI. That increased BMI has lots of bad health risks involved with it, as you are probably well aware of. This means if you are not a high risk patient then you are getting no added benefit from cardiovascular risk reduction, but you are gaining increased obesity risks. That’s not a good trade off.

Where does this lead us to understand the research better and how to use it? If you are a high risk patient with metabolic syndrome and no diabetes, adding some dark chocolate to your diet may be beneficial. Talk to your doctor about this as a potential strategy to assist your current medical intervention. But remember this study also showed the benefits of dark chocolate were not as profound as drug interventions, so it will not be a substitute for your current treatment. Be aware that you could see increased BMI, so adjust your total diet to make sure you are not adding additional calories with the added dark chocolate. If you are not a high risk patient, enjoying some occasional chocolate is okay, but don’t think it is giving you any added health benefits just some added taste benefits. Remember just as in almost all food choices, enjoy in appropriate moderation for the best health benefits.