Chocolate Cuts Blood Pressure -- Small Amount Helps, but Weight Could Cut Benefit

Jul 05, 09:48 AM

Current Headlines: By Lindsey Tanner Associated Press

CHICAGO - Here's some good and bad news for chocoholics: Dark chocolate seems to lower blood pressure, but it requires an amount less than two Hershey's Kisses to do it, a small study suggests.

The new research from Germany is the first to suggest that just a tiny amount may suffice for heart-healthy benefits.

Volunteers for the study ate just over 6 grams of dark chocolate daily for almost five months - one square from a German chocolate bar called Ritter Sport, equal to about 1 1/2 Hershey's Kisses. People who ate that amount ended up with lower blood pressure readings than those who ate white chocolate.

University of Cologne researcher Dr. Dirk Taubert, the study's lead author, said the blood pressure reductions with dark chocolate were small but big enough to potentially reduce heart disease risks, although study volunteers weren't followed long enough to measure that effect.

The research involved 44 people aged 56 through 73, for Germans who were otherwise healthy and mostly normal weight. The results echo other small studies. Cocoa contains flavanols, plant-based compounds credited with giving red wine its heart benefits.

One problem is chocolate bars containing cocoa tend to have lots of calories, so Taubert and his colleagues tested small amounts containing just 30 calories each.

Funded by Cologne's University Hospital, the study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The results are interesting but need to be duplicated in larger, more ethnically diverse populations, said Dr. Laura Svetkey, director of Duke University's Hypertension Center.

"I would be as happy as the next person if I got to eat more chocolate," she said, but weight gain from eating too much chocolate would counteract any benefits on blood pressure.

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