Dark chocolates benefits cardiovascular health
It’s time to celebrate chocoholics
Dark chocolates benefits cardiovascular health:- Chocoholics, it time for you to rejoice! Scientists have recently found that consuming flavanol-rich cocoa products such as dark chocolates may further benefit cardiovascular health.
Scientists had conducted a systematic review and meta—analysis of 19 randomised controlled the trials (RCTs) of cocoa consumption.
The meta-analysis have focused on whether consumption of flavanol—rich cocoa products was associated with the improvements in specific circulating biomarkers of cardiometabolic health as compared to consuming placebos with negligible cocoa flavanol content. In all, 1,139 volunteers were involved in these trials.
“Our meta-analysis of RCTs have characterises how cocoa flavanols affect the cardiometabolic biomarkers, providing guidance in designing large, definitive prevention trials against diabetes and cardiovascular disease in future work,” said Simin Liu, professor at Brown University in the US.
“We found that cocoa flavanol intake may further reduce dyslipidemia (elevated triglycerides), insulin resistance and also systemic inflammation, which are all major subclinical risk factors for cardiometabolic diseases,” said Liu.
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Potential benefits effect of flavanol—rich cocoa
The team’s research summarising data from 19 trials found potential beneficial effects of flavanol—rich cocoa on cardiometabolic health.
There were small-to-modest but also statistically significant improvements among those who ate flavanol—rich cocoa product vs those who did not.
The greatest effects have been seen among trial volunteers who ate between 200 and 600 milligrammes of the flavanols a day (based on their cocoa consumption).
They saw some significant declines in the blood glucose and insulin, as well as another indicator of insulin resistance called HOMA-IR. They have also seen an increase in HDL, or “good,” cholesterol.
Those consuming some higher doses saw some of the insulin resistance benefits and a drop in triglycerides, but not as a significant increase in HDL.
Those with lower doses of flavanols only saw a significant HDL benefit.
In general, where there were some benefits that is evident for both women and men and did not depend on what physical form the flavanol-rich cocoa product had been consumed in – dark chocolate vs a beverage, for example.
The study has been published in the Journal of Nutrition.
