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More Good News about Chocolate A small study from Italy suggests that eating dark chocolate daily can help lower blood pressure by an average of 10 percent. Participants included 10 men and 10 women with untreated high blood pressure. They were divided into two groups of five men and five women each; one group ate 3.5 oz of dark chocolate every day for 15 days while the other group ate white chocolate daily. Both groups then went off chocolate for a week before switching – the group that ate dark chocolate at first received white chocolate, and vice versa. White chocolate, which actually contains no chocolate, had no effect on blood pressure, but dark chocolate lowered it among all participants. Researchers credit the antioxidant flavonoids found in dark (but not white) chocolate for the improvement. Unfortunately, there’s a downside to this good news: about 500 calories for each 3.5 ounce bar of dark chocolate, which can add up to a weight gain of a pound a week if you add the chocolate to your diet without subtracting 500 calories of another food, or burning an additional 500 calories a day in exercise. Although the results are encouraging and suggest adding dark chocolate to the diet can be beneficial, if you’re taking blood pressure medication, don’t think of actually replacing it with dark chocolate. The study was published in the July 18, 2005 online edition of Hypertension. Source: Hypertension, online edition, July 18, 2005
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