Dec 28: Beware of biting into dark chocolates if you are a health freak and want to protect your heart, the avoidance may cost you high. Forget the past studies that had suggested that dark chocolate is good for the heart.
The recent studies published in an editorial of the renowned British magazine ‘Lancet’ establish that dark chocolates are not good for health. Any claim establishing benefit of dark chocolates may be misleading.
Why it is not healthy? Further the editorial respond to this general inquisitive develops in our mind. It says that many manufacturers remove flavanols (which is used to protect the heart) owing to their bitter taste. It says that fat, sugar and calories in chocolates trigger illness instead.
While the plain chocolates is considered rich in flavanols that helps to protect the heart and helps as well in keeping the blood pressure low. But many manufacturers remove this chemical because of its bitter taste and with a purpose to make it tasty.
'When chocolate manufacturers make confectionery, the natural cocoa solids can be darkened and the flavanols, which are bitter, removed, so even a dark-looking chocolate can have no flavanol,' the online edition of BBC News said quoted Lancet.
The journal notes that Consumers are too kept in dark about this dark chocolate; first they do not know about this ‘flavanol’ non-toxic chemical and whoever knows they do not find this because manufacturers rarely label their product with this information.
This depressing news comes just a month after Circulation, the medical journal for the American Heart Association, created a stir when it reported a study of 22 heart transplant patients who were given a dose of dark chocolate or fake chocolate. Just two hours after eating the real thing, patients had measurable improvements in blood flow and vascular function and less clotting, compared to placebo chocolate eaters, who experienced no changes.
To boost your chances of getting a flavanol-rich bar, the best option is to look for very dark chocolate with few added ingredients, notes Dr. Jacob Shani, chairman of the Cardiac Institute at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY.
"So, with the holiday season upon us, it might be worth getting familiar with the calories in a bar of dark chocolate versus a mince pastry and having a calculator at hand," the journal said.
|
|
Comments:
asd
December 30, 2007 at 12:00 AM
Stephanie Trotter
December 28, 2007 at 12:00 AMCould the manufacturers please tell us which chocolate still contains the flavanols? Failing this perhaps the BMA would undertake this research?
Jeeva Ramanar
December 28, 2007 at 12:00 AMHi,
This is very very useful information for heart patients. Because all the earlier studies shows that black chocklate is preventing heart diseases and it may helpful for health.
thanks and Regards,
Jeeva.v
Didn't a couple of years back someone pointed out that dark chocolates were GOOD for health?
I remember in early ninteties someone pointed out that tomatoes were good for health. in the mid nineties some other researcher pointed out that tomatoes had carcinogenic properties.
In the LATE ninteties someone researched that tomatoes had some OTHER good healthy attributes.. in the early part of this century osmeone refuted that claim.
so looks like the war of useless research and wasted money is shifted to another useless thing as chocolates.
Of course theres nothing ELSE to research about is there? Like AIDS, Bird Flu, polio? I mean..these diseases can ONLY affect a piddling 100 million people every year..not worth researching upon!!!