Cocoa flavonoids found in chocolate have documented health benefits, such as lower blood pressure, more flexible blood vessels and more sensitive insulin response. Despite these modest but consistent benefits, clinicians have warned that people should not eat chocolate because of the fear of weight gain. After all, chocolate candy is high in sugar and fat, which both contribute added calories.
A new survey of 1,000 people asked about their eating habits has found, to the surprise of the nutritional naysayers, that those who consumed some chocolate about twice a week were a bit less heavy than those who didn’t eat any or who ate it less frequently than every week. Even small quantities of chocolate seemed to be associated with the minor difference in weight, about 5 to 7 pounds.
No cause and effect should be assumed. The primary researcher says, however, that perhaps we don’t need to feel guilty if we do eat a bit of chocolate regularly.
In fact, the researchers pointed out that since people who eat chocolate are no fatter than other folks, even a little bit leaner, and since cocoa flavanoids seem to have health benefits in rodent studies, it might be time for a randomized controlled trial of chocolate in humans. We imagine it might not be difficult to recruit research subjects!
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