Chocolate for your Heart

Italian researchers have calculated how much chocolate we need to protect against heart disease. It isn't much - 6.7 grams, about the amount you would get from eating two or three small squares of dark chocolate per week. The investigators looked at chocolate consumption among 4,849 Italians enrolled in one of the largest health studies ever conducted in Europe. The researchers checked participants' levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a marker for chronic inflammation in the body that indicates increased risk of heart disease. They related CRP levels to chocolate intake and found that participants who ate moderate amounts of dark chocolate regularly had significantly lower levels of CRP. The benefits of chocolate remained even after the researchers adjusted for other dietary factors including consumption of wine, fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, the bad news is that if you eat more than the equivalent of 6.7 grams of chocolate per day, the beneficial effects on CRP levels seem to disappear. The study was published in the October, 2008 issue of the Journal of Nutrition.