Study: Eating Dark Chocolate can Reduce “Excess Body Fat” in One Week
If you spend any time reviewing natural health news and research (or reading our work here on Natural Society), you already know the health benefits of chocolate are no joke. More and more we are learning that you don’t need to make excuses to indulge in high quality dark chocolate. As a matter of fact, just like you might indulge in honey to quell allergies or ginger to settle your stomach, you may want to add chocolate to your kitchen “medicine” cabinet for its heart-healthy benefits.
A new study from researchers with the Department of Neuroscience, Division of Human Nutrition at the University of Tor Vergata in Rome has revealed that eating dark chocolate can reduce the markers for heart disease and even reduce belly fat in a single week.
Published in the European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences, “Effects of dark chocolate in a population of Normal Weight Obese women: a pilot study” looked at the effects of a 100 gram dark chocolate bar taken for one week in women who fit the study prerequisites.
The seeming misnomer of “normal weight obese (NOW) women” refers to women who may have a weight or BMI classified as normal but who have a higher body fat percentage—30% or more in most cases. It’s similar to the en-vogue label of being “skinny-fat”, where you may not weigh too much, but your body fat is excessive. NOW syndrome, as GreenMedInfo explains, is related to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and mortality and is “associated with a 2.2 fold increased risk of cardiovascular mortality in women compared with those with low body fat.”
During the study, women aged 20 to 40 years old received 100 grams of dark chocolate with about 70% cocoa for 7 days. Blood lipid profiles, blood pressure, abdominal circumference, and biochemical parameters were measured throughout. The results? Good cholesterol (HDL) went up and bad cholesterol (LDL) webt down. Other cardiovascular disease markers including interleukin-1 receptor antagonistwas reduced and abdominal circumference decreased.
Showcasing just a couple dark chocolate health benefits, the researchers concluded:
“Our findings suggest that regular consumption of DC could be useful in maintaining a good atherogenic profile, due to the favorable effects on HDL cholesterol, lipoprotein ratios and inflammation markers.”
For you, this doesn’t mean extra chocolate syrup on your ice cream or a Snickers bar at the grocery store check-out. Instead, it means eating high quality, organic dark chocolate with a minimum of 70% cocoa could help reduce your risk of heart disease.
Good news for chocolate lovers, BUT, this article should have been posted with a graphic of actual dark chocolate, not milk chocolate.
Can’t understand why Natural Society is still peddling the ‘good cholesterol/bad cholesterol’ lie.
I just wish you would make the distinction between healthy chocolate and candy. Most dark chocolate is not all that healthy and will NOT do what this article claims. It is candy that has had the nutrients and antioxidants cooked out of it. The percentage listed on the labels are for how much actual cocoa is in it and does not have much to do with nutrition Not only is the good stuff cooked out, but fillers, like wax and unhealthy sugars have been added. This is not food and not healthy and will NOT make anyone lose weight. You have printed these types of articles before, and I have made the same commentary. I suppose you are either not reading, not listening, not paying attention or just not doing the proper research. Sure, everyone wants to think think that the dark chocolate that they love is healthy as well as delicious, but there is only one chocolate that I know of that fits the bill, and that is Xocai healthy dark chocolate. It has the highest antioxidant rating, which is really what you are looking for, of any and all of them on the market today and the best and clinically proven by double blind studies rate of success for weight loss, being anti-inflammatory and for even helping to prevent and even cure many afflictions, such as diabetes. I also know this from experience.
Where can I buy Xocai healthy dark chocolate?
google “Xocai multi level marketing” for information about how it is distributed.
I eat extra dark chocolate every day in small amounts… I consider it a vitamin supplement of sorts
I hope people dont run out and buy up a bunch of Hershey bars.
Not talking about the store bought candy bars. This is unprocessed chocolate. Don’t get it twisted.
Cholesterol is not bad. Defining it as bad allowed a lot of nasty drugs on the market, though. It also enabled a lot of high sugar items replacing their fat content, thus contributing to the diabetes ‘epidemic’.
Make your own dark chocolate – baking chocolate plus a bit of stevia to sweeten, and small amounts of coconut oil for smooth chocolate, or coconut manna or bits for some texture – melt together and then cool or keep frozen until eaten.