Health And Wellness Product Reviews - Is Dark Chocolate Really Healthy

 

Chocolate brown appears to be one of the latest products to hit the "health food" product circuit. The Dove chocolates bar and Xocai healthy chocolates are just two examples. The battle cry is that chocolates is bursting with anti-oxidants that help to stop heart problems and stroke. Sounds great!

What are anti-oxidants and do we actually need them?

Antioxidants are substances or nutrients inside our foods which could prevent or slow the oxidative damage to the body. When our body cells use oxygen, they naturally produce free radicals, or by-products, which could cause damage. Antioxidants act as "free radical scavengers" and hence prevent and repair damage done by these free radicals. Health problems such as for example heart problems, macular degeneration, diabetes, cancer are all contributed by oxidative damage. Indeed, a recently available study conducted by researchers from London unearthed that 5 servings of fruits and vegetables reduce the risk of stroke by 25 percent. Antioxidants might also enhance immune defense and therefore lower the risk of cancer and infection.Hit on  Read More to explore more about our services and sites. Hope you ll like our more services.

Research conducted by scientists from Holland's National Institute of Public Health and Environment demonstrates chocolates contain antioxidants called Catechins and Phenols. These antioxidants could prevent heart diseases and cancer.

Chocolate is much like red wine in that it is said to guard against heart problems and it also contains phenols. These reduce the presence of free radicals that damage cells and DNA. Phenols are said to stop fat like substances in the blood stream from oxidizing and clogging the arteries.

OK, that sounds pretty crucial that you me. Anti-oxidants are a very important thing!

In line with the research, chocolates, not white chocolate, lowers high blood pressure. This study is from Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, and his colleagues at the University of Cologne in Germany. Their report appears in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Taubert's team signed up six men and seven women aged 55-64. All had just been identified as having mild high blood pressure -- on average, systolic blood pressure of 153 and diastolic blood pressure of 84. Every day for a couple of weeks, they ate a bag of chips and were asked to balance its 480 calories by not eating other foods similar in nutrients and calories. Half the patients got chocolates and half got white chocolate.

People who ate chocolates had a substantial drop in blood pressure by typically 5 points for systolic and typically 2 points for diastolic blood pressure. People who ate white chocolate did not.