Numerous health benefits associated with dark chocolate consumption have come to light in recent years, now researchers believe it can reduce plaque buildup in the arteries.
Dark chocolate can help make arteries more flexible and prevents white blood vessels from sticking to their walls, a Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology news release reported. Stiff arteries and white blood cell adhesion are known contributors to atherosclerosis.
The team found increasing the flavanol content of the chocolate did not increase the outcome.
"We provide a more complete picture of the impact of chocolate consumption in vascular health and show that increasing flavanol content has no added beneficial effect on vascular health," Diederik Esser, Ph.D., a researcher involved in the work from the Top Institute Food and Nutrition and Wageningen University, Division of Human Nutrition in Wageningen, The Netherlands, said in the news release. "However, this increased flavanol content clearly affected taste and thereby the motivation to eat these chocolates. So the dark side of chocolate is a healthy one."
The researchers looked at 44 middle-aged men who were overweight to make their findings. Over a two-week period the study subjects were asked to consume two grams of chocolate per day.
The participants received either specially-produced chocolate with a high flavanol content or traditional chocolate that was not specially manufactured.
Both before and after the two-week period the participants were given a number of vascular measurements.
"The effect that dark chocolate has on our bodies is encouraging not only because it allows us to indulge with less guilt, but also because it could lead the way to therapies that do the same thing as dark chocolate but with better and more consistent results," Gerald Weissmann, M.D., Editor-in-Chief of The FASEB Journal, said in the news release. "Until the 'dark chocolate drug' is developed, however, we'll just have to make do with what nature has given us!"
