Good News for Chocoholics

Just hadda share this one --

From a recent aricle in The Daily Telegraph

Chocolate 'as good as aspirin'
From correspondents in Washington
November 15, 2006 12:00


A FEW bits of dark chocolate a day could have the same benefit as aspirin in reducing blood clots and preventing heart attacks, researchers said today.

"... the chemical in cocoa beans has a biochemical effect similar to aspirin in reducing platelet clumping which can be fatal if a clot forms and blocks a blood vessel, causing a heart attack,'' lead researcher Diane Becker told the annual conference of the American Heart Association, in Chicago.

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine professor cautioned that her work was not intended as a prescription to gobble up huge amounts of chocolate laced with health-offending substances like sugar, butter and cream.

However, she said two tablespoons a day of dark chocolate, meaning the purest form of the candy made from dried extract of roasted cocoa beans, may be just what the doctor ordered.

For almost 20 years, scientists have known that dark chocolate, rich in chemicals called flavonoids, lowers blood pressure and has other beneficial effects on blood flow.

Ms Becker's findings showed that normal, everyday doses of chocolate found in ordinary foods was enough to provide clot-controlling benefit, rather than the kilos of chocolate earlier studies said were needed for flavonoids to have a significant effect.

"Eating a little bit of chocolate or having a drink of hot cocoa as part of a regular diet is probably good for personal health, so long as people don't eat too much of it, and too much of the kind with lots of butter and sugar,'' said Ms Becker.

The study was based on tests on 139 subjects who were disqualified from an earlier, larger study on the effects of aspirin on blood platelets because they did not refrain from eating chocolate.

Their "offence" led to what is believed to be the first biochemical explanation of why people who ate a few pieces of chocolate a day lowered their risk of dying of a heart attack by almost one half.