Chocolate & blood pressure

Just what you wanted to hear.

Eating only 30 calories a day of dark--but not white--chocolate for 18 weeks lowered blood pressure by 2 or 3 points in a study of 44 middle-aged and older adults with either high blood pressure or prehypertension. That's equal to just 1 1/2 Special Dark Hershey's Kisses (though the German researchers didn't use Hershey's).

The dark-chocolate eaters had higher blood levels of S nitrosoglutathione, which relaxes blood vessels. That could explain how dark chocolate lowers blood pressure.

What to do: It would be nice if chocolate lowered blood pressure. But these findings need to be replicated, especially because the study wasn't double blind. (The participants knew whether they were getting dark or white chocolate.) In the meantime, don't use the results as an excuse to eat bigger servings of calorie-dense chocolate. While the people in this study ate too little chocolate to affect their weight, an overenthusiastic chocolate eater could get carried away. And being overweight can boost blood pressure.

And don't assume that the same results apply to milk chocolate or chocolate coating, cake, or ice cream. None of them were tested.

JAMA 298: 49, 2007.

COPYRIGHT 2007 Center for Science in the Public Interest
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning