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Why is Chocolate Healthy?, Part 2 Print E-mail


The Panama Paradox

Antioxidants may not be the only heart-healthy compounds in chocolate. You've heard of the French Paradox, right? The fact that the French eat more saturated fat than do Americans but have much lower rates of heart disease? The paradox is that saturated fat is supposed to clog the arteries. The answer? The polyphenols in all that red wine the French drink help to protect their arteries against the damaging effects of all that fat.

Now, let's talk about the Panama Paradox. On a group of islands off the coast of Panama dwell the Kuna people. This indigenous group eats a traditional diet high in salt, yet they have extremely low blood pressure. As did their Central American ancestors, the Kuna drink about five cups of chocolate a day. Could the chocolate be responsible for their low blood pressure? It seemed possible, because blood pressure rose in the Kuna who moved to urban Panama City and stopped consuming their traditional diet.

To test chocolate's role in this, Norman Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard University, fed Boston volunteers either typical commercial milk chocolate or dark chocolate bars. Those who consumed the dark chocolate at levels equivalent to the cocoa intake of the Kuna islanders showed the same high levels of nitric oxide in their blood. This is worth noting because nitric oxide is responsible for relaxing and dilating blood vessels, which lowers blood pressure and allows more blood to pass through them unimpeded.

Tasty Aspirin?

The nitric oxide effect of chocolate may also be behind the evidence that chocolate seems to help prevent blood platelets from clumping and forming clots. By blocking the flow of blood, clots cause heart attacks and strokes. Carl Keen, chairman of the nutrition department at the University of California-Davis, found that a drink containing 25 grams of semisweet chocolate had the same thinning effect on blood platelets as did an 81-milligram dose of aspirin. So it's your choice: an after-dinner aspirin, or a couple squares of dark chocolate?


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