Dark Chocolate Daily Lowers Heart Risk

It’s cheap, effective, and tastes great–all excellent qualities for an agent that lowers blood pressure and cholesterol so well that eating 100 grams of it a day could offer what Australian researchers are calling “significant health benefits.” Dark chocolate, say researchers at Monash University, if eaten every day, could prevent 70 non-fatal and 15 fatal cardiovascular events per 10,000 people over a 10-year period. A Monash University news release reports that, in the first study to examine the long-term health benefits of flavanoids, researchers at the school used a mathematical model to predict the long-term health effects and cost effectiveness of daily dark chocolate consumption in 2013 people already at high risk of heart disease. The bottom line: findings suggested that investing $42 per person, per year on dark chocolate-related health strategies, including advertising and promotion, would be beneficial to the wider population in the prevention of cardiovascular disease. Read more from Monash University.