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All the things about the healthy chocolate are great in theory, but what about putting them to the test? Sure, polyphenols prevent heart disease, stroke, and other diseases, and cocoa is loaded with polyphenols, but has cocoa been proven to have health benefits? Let's look at the research.

A study at Pennsylvania State University had volunteers eat 22 grams of cocoa powder and 16 grams of dark chocolate in their daily diets. The volunteers had much improved cholesterol ratios, with more of the good HDL cholesterol and less of the bad LDL cholesterol. Most interesting, and surely related to chocolate's antioxidant effect, the LDL cholesterol that did exist seemed to be more resistant to oxidationthe process where it is "scuffed up" by free radicals and becomes more sticky. A similar study in 1996 found that subjects' LDL cholesterol was much more resistant to oxidation two hours after they had eaten 35 grams of cocoa powder. Another study conducted on cocoa-fed rabbits found the same effect.

We hesitate to tell you about this next study. The results sound so over-the-top that they can only make people look at you funny when you tell them. But you should probably tell them anyway. Two researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health studied 7,800 Harvard alumni and found that those who ate chocolate and other candy 1 to 3 times per month lived, on average, a year longer than those who never ate candy. Those who pounded candyat least 3 times per weekdidn't live quite as long, but still were 16 percent less likely to die over the period of the study than the candy abstainers. Don't take this as a license to inhale every ice cream cone you see remember, it's best to up your chocolate intake without increasing sugar consumptionbut now and then, its probably a healthy thing to let the good times roll.


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