http://story.news.ya...rt_chocolate_dc
Only Some Chocolate Is Heart Healthy - Researchers (excerpts)
Wed, Nov 20, 2002
By Susan Nadeau
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chocolate and cocoa may help prevent heart attacks, researchers said on Wednesday, but don't run to the office vending machine yet.
So far, just two commercially available chocolate products -- Dove dark chocolate bars and M&M Baking Bits -- are known to contain high levels of flavanol, the substance linked to heart health, they said.
Other products are untested or lack high levels, such as milk chocolate bars.
Flavanols are naturally occurring compounds in many plants or plant-based foods such as vegetables, fruits, red wine and cocoa. They are thought to have an effect on vascular dilation, or a relaxing of the muscles around blood vessels, which helps keep blood flowing through the vessels.
Research also suggests flavanols enhance nitric oxide, which causes arteries to dilate and increases blood flow, keeping potentially dangerous deposits from adhering to artery walls.
And flavanols may have an aspirin-like effect on platelets, reducing blood clotting linked to heart attacks.
Marguerite Engler, professor and vice chair of the Department of Physiological Nursing, University of California at San Francisco, was an investigator in a study that compared the Dove dark chocolate to another dark chocolate bar and to aspirin.
The study, presented at the American Heart Association (news - web sites) meeting this week in Chicago, was independently funded.
