You do not have to feel so bad about it the next time you eat a piece of chocolate. Despite its negative reputation for inducing weight gain, a variety of health advantages are also linked with this tasty treat.

 

Benefits

Chocolate gets a lot of negative publicity due to the high concentration of fat and sugar. Its use has been linked with acne, obesity, elevated blood pressure, coronary heart disease, and diabetes. However, according to a study of the health benefits of chocolate published in the Netherlands Journal of Medicine, this is not entirely bad news. The authors point out that cocoa, the main ingredient in chocolate, contains biologically active phenolic compounds.

This has modified people's opinions about chocolate and inspired studies into how it could influence aging and disorders such as oxidative stress, blood pressure control, and atherosclerosis.

 

Very Nutritious

If you buy high-quality dark chocolate with a high amount of cocoa, it is actually quite nutritious. It contains a good amount of soluble fiber and is filled with minerals. A 100-gram dark chocolate bar containing 70–85 per cent cocoa contains:

• 11 grams of fiber
• 67% of the RDI for iron
• 58% of the RDI for magnesium
• 89% of the RDI for copper
• 98% of the RDI for manganese

 

Powerful Source of Antioxidants

ORAC stands for "oxygen radicals absorption capacity." It is a test of the antioxidant action of foods. Researchers essentially set a bunch of free radicals (bad) against a food sample to see how much the antioxidants in the food will "disarm" the radicals. The biological validity of ORAC values is doubted since they are tested in the test tube and do not have the same impact in the body. It is worth noting, that organic, unprocessed cocoa beans are among the highest quality foods that have been evaluated. Dark chocolate is filled with organic compounds that are biologically active which function as antioxidants. This include polyphenols, flavanols and catechins. One research found that cocoa and dark chocolate had more antioxidant activity, polyphenols and flavanols than all other fruits studied, including blueberries and acai berries.

 

Cognitive function

Scientists at Harvard Medical School have indicated that drinking two cups of hot chocolate a day may help keep the brain healthy and minimize memory loss in older people. Analysis showed that hot chocolate helps increase the supply of blood to areas of the brain where it was needed. Results of the laboratory trial, released in 2014, showed that a chocolate extract, called lavado, could minimize or avoid damage to nerve pathways seen in patients with Alzheimer's disease.

 

 

Athletic performance

Researchers who researched cyclists in the United Kingdom discovered that "after eating dark chocolate, riders consumed less oxygen while riding at a slow speed and thus covered more ground in a two-minute flat-out time trial." The scientists claim that the success of dark chocolate in this case is that it contains flavanols known as epicatechins, which increase the release of nitric oxide in the body. The effect of beetroot juice is similar.

 

References

https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/7-health-benefits-dark-chocolate#TOC_TITLE_HDR_2

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/270272#light_versus_dark

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