Study: Even Milk Chocolate May Be Good For Heart Health
Adding to the glut of chocolate-and-your-health studies, a new one finds that chocolate – even milk chocolate – may not be bad for your heart. In fact, it may even be good for it, according to new research in the BMJ journal Heart. The University of Aberdeen team looked at data from over 21,000 people in England and found that the people who ate the most chocolate were the least likely to suffer from cardiovascular disease and stroke over the years. There could of course be variables beyond chocolate at play, which might explain the connection. So the researchers, knowing the kinds of ideas chocolate studies can put in our heads, urge extreme caution when interpreting the results. At the very least, they say, the results add to the growing pile of evidence that when it comes to heart health, if you’re already a moderate partaker of chocolate, there’s little if any need to avoid it.
The researchers analyzed data from people taking part in the EPIC-Norfolk study. The participants filled out questionnaires about their eating habits, exercise habits, and other lifestyle variables. Periodically their weight, blood pressure, and other markers of heart health were measured. By the end of 12 years, just over 3,000 of the 21,000 had experienced coronary heart disease (CHD) or stroke.
It turned out that people who ate the most chocolate – from 16 to 100 grams/day – experienced the least heart disease: they had a 14% lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease and a 23% reduced risk of stroke.
Chocolate consumption was also linked to a number of other desirable variables: lower body mass index (BMI), waist-to-hip ratio, systolic blood pressure, inflammatory proteins, and diabetes. It was also linked to being slightly younger and exercising slightly more. All of these variables could lead to reduced heart risk. So as an added measure, the team looked back at previous studies including over 150,000 participants: The connection between chocolate consumption and reduced risk for heart disease and stroke was even more robust.
Still, these are just correlations. But if there is a causal relationship between chocolate and heart health, there are some plausible mechanisms — antioxidants being the most likely. “Chocolate contains some compounds which are important for health such as flavonols,” says study author Phyo Myint.
And as always, there are caveats. One is that the researchers didn’t separate out dark and milk chocolate – in fact, many of the participants ate milk chocolate, which may have far fewer of the antioxidants thought to be behind the connection. To this, the team suggests it may be “not only flavonoids, but also other compounds—possibly related to milk constituents such as calcium and fatty acids.”
Additionally, reverse causation could be at play, where people already at risk for various diseases, including heart disease, might purposely quit eating chocolate because of this. Myint tells me that this is less of a possibility, however, since they “excluded people with stroke and heart attack at the baseline. But there may be people with particular risk profile for CVD, and therefore reverse causation cannot be completely ruled out.” Still he says, it can’t explain the whole effect. There are some other drawbacks, like the fact that people only reported on their diets in the initial assessment, and that the study only looked at middle-aged and older people.
But the good news is that even if adding it in isn’t immediately warranted, the evidence at this point seems to suggest there’s no real need to avoid chocolate in the name of health. “I think a little chocolate is okay for a reasonably healthy adult without major risk factors or at least not too many of them,” says Myint. “Of note, the highest consumption group in EPIC-Norfolk consumed about 16g/day to ~100g/day so people don’t need to consume too much chocolate for it to have potential benefits.” Myint recommends aiming for the lower end of the range, about 16g/day, rather than the upper.
Recent evidence has found not only connections between chocolate and the heart, but also chocolate and the brain. Last year a randomized study found that people who drank a high-potency cocoa drink for three months performed better on memory tests than those who drank a less potent version – and regions of the brain known to be involved in memory were also more active. Since we know that heart and brain health are intimately connected, it’s not surprising that compounds that benefit one may also be good for the other.
But before you dig in, think about this. Chocolate has some nutritional, not to mention psychological, pitfalls. Nutritionally, some varieties can be extremely high in fat, particularly saturated fat, and chocolate can of course contain loads of sugar. And psychologically, chocolate can be a slippery slope, and can trigger some wildly illogical justifications in our minds (“sure, this jumbo chocolate muffin is the same as this raw dark chocolate bar”). So as always, proceed with caution into the chocolate-for-health territory.
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Source: Forbes