Leave it to the Dutch to help demonstrate
the health benefits of chocolate. A study of older men
in The Netherlands, known for its luscious chocolate,
indicated those who ate the equivalent of one-third of
a chocolate bar every day had lower blood pressure and
a reduced risk of death.
The researchers say, however, it's too early to conclude
it was chocolate that led to better health. The men who
ate more cocoa products could have shared other qualities
that made them healthier. Experts also point out that
eating too much chocolate can make you fat — a risk
for both heart disease and high blood pressure.
"It's way too early to make recommendations about whether
people should eat more cocoa or chocolate," said Brian
Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist at Wageningen University
in The Netherlands, who co-authored the study.
Still, the Dutch study, supported by grants from the
Netherlands Prevention Foundation, appears to be the largest
so far to document a health effect for cocoa beans. And
it confirms findings of smaller, shorter-term studies
that also linked chocolate with lower blood pressure.
The findings, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine,
are based on data collected for more than a decade on
Dutch men who were ages 65 and older in 1985. The long-running
Zutphen Elderly Study has been used by other researchers
to look for risk factors for chronic disease.
This time, researchers examined the eating habits of
470 healthy men who were not taking blood pressure medicine.
The men who ate the most products made from cocoa beans
— including cocoa drinks, chocolate bars and chocolate
pudding — had lower blood pressure and a 50 percent
lower risk of death.
The men ate the equivalent of about 10 grams of chocolate
a day.
Cocoa beans contain flavanols, which are thought to increase
nitric oxide in the blood and improve the function of
blood vessels.
"This is a very important article providing epidemiological
support for what many researchers have been observing
in experimental models," said Cesar Fraga of the University
of California Davis, who does similar research but was
not involved in the new study.
Buijsse noted the men eating the most cocoa products
were not heavier or bigger eaters than the men who ate
less cocoa.
Could the study results apply to women?
"Our study consisted of elderly men," Buijsse said. "If
you look at the other interventional studies, you see
the same effects in men and women, younger people and
older people. It may be the findings are generalizable
to women, but you never know."
