When people think of chocolate the thought that comes to mind is that sweet creamy taste. What most don't think about or know about is the health benefits. Now the chocolate that studies are showing that is healthy in small quantities is dark and not made with milk or drank with milk. Why? Good question.



The reason being is that milk neutralizes the large amounts of antioxidants present in dark chocolate. These antioxidants are what eat up free radicals, those are the destructive molecules that are shown to be present in heart disease and other illnesses.

Recently there were two studies done to see how much the dark chocolate affected mild high blood pressure.

The first study consisted of six men and seven women who were just diagnosed with mild high blood pressure. The ages of these individuals were between 55-64. The average blood pressure was 153 over 84.

The top number is called the systolic, the pressure of which the blood enters the heart. The bottom is called the diastolic, the pressure of which the blood leaves the heart.

Every day over the course of two weeks, they ate a 100-gram candy bar. Now a 100-gram piece of chocolate is about 480 calories so they were told to balance this caloric intake by not eating other foods similar in nutrients and calories. On top of this the the group of people were divided by half were given dark chocolate and the rest got white chocolate.

Those who got the dark chocolate had a noticeable drop in their blood pressure by an average of 5 points on their systolic number (top number) and an average of points on the diastolic number (bottom number). Meanwhile the ones' who got the white chocolate had no such drop in their blood pressure.

The second study was conducted on twelve healthy people, consisting of seven men and five women. Their ages ranged from 25 to 35.

On different days they were given 100 grams of the dark chocolate. Then the other days they were given 100 grams of the chocolate with a small glass of whole milk, or with 200 grams of milk chocolate.

An hour later their antioxidants were measured in their blood. The ones' who ate just the dark chocolate had the highest level of antioxidants. They also had the highest levels epicatechin in their blood. Epicatechin is a healthy compound found chocolate.

Meanwhile the group who ate milk chocolate or dark chocolate with milk had the lowest epicatechin levels.

Now chocolate is made from plants, therefore it contains a lot of the health benefits of dark vegetables. Chocolate gets it's benefits from the flavonoids in it.

These flavonoids act as antioxidants. Flavonoids help in the blood pressure because flavonoids help in the production of nitric oxide. Which in turn help balance certain hormones.

In other words what experts are discovering that a small amount of dark chocolate introduced into the diet is beneficial. But too much of a good thing is necessary good either.

There are those calories to think about. So add a small amount of the darkest chocolate you can find or handle since the darker the chocolate the more flavonoids the better.

But remember to balance those calories but cutting out foods similar in nutrients and calories.