There’s good news regarding women health today: According to an article in the October 18 issue of Journal of the American College of Cardiology there are some great health benefits associated with eating more chocolate. This study looked at over 33,000women from Sweden between the ages of 49 – 83 who had no medical history of cancer, stroke, diabetes, or heart disease. It concluded that women who ate at least two candy bars per week were less likely to have a stroke.
Understanding the Important Link Between Chocolate and Decreased Stroke Risk in Women Health
There are flavonoids in cocoa that contain antioxidant properties. These suppress the oxidation of the bad cholesterol that’s known to lead to strokes. This should come as no surprise though since the Mayans who lived hundreds of years ago though cocoa was precious – even magical. Since then cocoa has been show to lower blood pressure and insulin resistance. It’s also proven to prevent blood clots by keeping your arteries more flexible and prevent the oxidation that cholesterol can cause.
Studies have shown that those women who ate the most cholate (about 2.3 ounces per week) had a 20% lower risk of having a stroke when compared with those women who either never or very rarely ate any chocolate. It’s also important to note that the chocolate that was studied here was dark chocolate because it’s known to contain more of the beneficial flavonoids your body needs and less of the sugar it doesn’t need.
Researchers encourage women to eat chocolate in moderation as it is now proven to have a positive impact on women health. However, you shouldn’t eat as much of it as you can – treating it like another food group. Besides having unwanted sugar and fat, chocolate also contains a lot of caffeine. This is why anyone who has an irregular heartbeat or suffers from high blood pressure should especially be concerned with eating chocolate in moderation as it can negatively affect these conditions.
Conclusion
Now that we know that tobacco and alcohol are bad for us, it’s nice to know there’s still a delicious treat that we can enjoy that also improves upon women health. However, we must still control our chocolate intake because a balanced diet is important. So, don’t give into your chocolate cravings and become a chocoholic, especially since most chocolate brands are high in sugar and fat and low in cocoa. This is especially true in the U.S. and not so true in countries that are famous for their chocolate like Belgium, France, Switzerland, and Italy.
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