Eating just a few squares of dark chocolate every day lowers blood pressure in just one month, a study suggests. While milk chocolate has its benefits, 90 per cent cocoa was found to have the strongest effect.

Researchers in Portugal believe this is due to dark chocolate being richer in the powerful antioxidant flavanols.The research was carried out by the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra and led by Dr Telmo Pereira. The benefits of chocolate have been extensively studied, particularly when it comes to our heart health.

Flavanols have been linked to everything from reduced insulin resistance to weight regulation and even faster wound healing. There is therefore a huge amount of scientific interest in how eating flavanol-rich foods many influence our wellbeing.
To determine how chocolate affects our heart, the researchers had 30 healthy adults – aged 18-to-27 – eat 20g of the sweet treat every day for 30 days. Half of the participants had 55 per cent cocoa chocolate,...

http://haleplushearty.org/2019/04/03/eating-dark-chocolate-lowers-blood-pressure/

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