Dark Chocolate Beneficial in Treating High Blood Pressure

Well what can I say…Its a good news for all those chocolate lovers around the world. Not only this delicious chocolate satisfies the taste buds but also serves a good remedy for High Blood Pressure.

Dr Karin Ried worked with a team of researchers from the University of Adelaide, Australia, to conduct the analysis. Dark Chocolate are a rich source of antioxidants, these benefits are from flavonoid. Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure through the production of nitric oxide, and balance certain hormones in the body.

Previous researches in Germany have also suggested that:

• Eating dark chocolate for 18 weeks reduced average systolic blood pressure (the top reading) by 2.9 mm of mercury.
• It also reduced the average diastolic blood pressure by 1.9 mm of mercury.
• These reductions were not accompanied by changes in body weight, plasma levels of lipids or glucose.
• The proportion of participants with hypertension who ate dark chocolate went down from 86 to 68 per cent.
• The dark chocolate group also had increased levels of plasma biomarkers: cocoa phenols and vasodilatory S-nitrosoglutathione.
• The systolic and diastolic blood pressure of the participants who ate white chocolate did not change.

The researchers are cautious, however, “The practicability of chocolate or cocoa drinks as long-term treatment is questionable,” said Dr Ried