10 MAIN HEALTH BENEFITS OF DARK CHOCOLATE
Dark chocolate has been shown to have several health benefits, such as:
Dark chocolate is full of nutrients that can improve your health.
Antioxidants: It's made from the seed of the cacao tree and is one of the best sources of them. A lot of research has shown that dark chocolate can help you stay healthy and cut down on the risk of heart disease, too.
Scientists have found that dark chocolate or cocoa can help you stay healthy.
1. It is very healthy
If you buy good dark chocolate with a lot of cocoa, it's good for you. It has a good amount of soluble fiber and a lot of minerals in it.
A 100-gram bar of dark chocolate with 70–85% cocoa has:
- 11 grams of fiber per day
- 67% of the DV for iron is gone
- The DV for magnesium dropped by 58%.
- 90% of the DV for copper was lost.
- 98% of the DV for manganese was met
It also has a lot of potassium, phosphorus, zinc, and selenium, as well.
Of course, 100 grams (3.5 ounces) is a lot of food. You should not eat it every day. These nutrients also have 600 calories and a fair amount of sugar in them, but they're worth the calories and sugar.
For this reason, dark chocolate should only be eaten in small amounts. Because cocoa and dark chocolate also have good fats, this is another reason to like them. In olive oil, oleic acid is one of the healthy fats. Stearic acid is also found in olive oil. Palmitic acid is also found in palmitic acid.
Stearic acid does not affect the cholesterol in your body. A substance called palmitic acid can raise cholesterol levels, but it only makes up one-third of the total fat calories in your body.
2. A lot of antioxidants are found in this food
Oxygen radical absorbance capacity, or ORAC, is the name for this. It's a way to tell how many antioxidants foods have in them.
Free radicals are bad, so researchers put a lot of them together and see how well the antioxidants in the food can get rid of them. This is how it works:
As it's measured in a test tube, the biological significance of ORAC values isn't clear. They may not have the same effect on the body, though.
As a side note, raw, unprocessed cocoa beans are one of the best foods that have been tested.
Dark chocolate is full of organic compounds that are good for your body and are antioxidants. These include polyphenols, flavonols, and catechins, as well as other things.
There was one study that found that cocoa and dark chocolate had more antioxidant activity, polyphenols, and flavanols than any of the other fruits that were put to the test. This included blueberries and acai berries, as well as other fruits.
3. This may help improve the flow of blood and lower blood pressure.
The flavanols in dark chocolate can make the endothelium, which is the lining of the arteries, produce nitric oxide, which helps blood flow (NO).
One of the jobs of NO is to tell the arteries to relax, which lowers the resistance to blood flow and thus lowers blood pressure.
People who have done a lot of research say that cocoa and dark chocolate can improve blood flow and lower blood pressure, but the effects are usually not very strong.
However, one study on people with high blood pressure didn't show any difference, so be careful with this.
This is because there is so much difference between studies on this topic that there should be more research done on this topic
4. Increases HDL and protects LDL from becoming oxidized, which is bad for your health.
Eat dark chocolate and you can cut down on some of the things that make you more likely to get heart disease.
It was found that men who ate cocoa powder had a lot less oxidized LDL (bad) cholesterol than those who didn't eat it. It also raised HDL and cut down on total LDL for people with high cholesterol.
Oxidized LDL means that the LDL cholesterol has been mixed with free radicals, which can damage your body.
This makes the LDL particle itself dangerous. It can hurt other tissues, like the lining of your heart's arteries.
Cocoa makes sense because it lowers the amount of oxidized LDL. Antioxidants are found in a lot of them, and they make their way into the bloodstream and help protect lipoproteins from oxidative damage.
5. May cut the risk of heart disease
They think dark chocolate has a lot of compounds that can help keep LDL from getting oxidized.
In the long run, this should mean that less cholesterol will build up in the arteries, which means that there will be less risk of heart disease.
There have been a lot of long-term studies that show a big improvement.
In a study of 470 older men, cocoa was found to cut the risk of dying from heart disease by 50% over the next 15 years!
Another study found that if you eat chocolate two or more times a week, your risk of having calcified plaque in your arteries went down by 32%. It didn't work to eat less chocolate.
This isn't the only study that found that eating dark chocolate more than five times a week cut the risk of heart disease by 57%.
6. It could protect your skin from the sun
Dark chocolate may also be good for your skin because of its bioactive ingredients.
Flavanols
can protect the skin from the sun, improve blood flow to the skin, and make the
skin more dense and hydrated.
The minimal
erythemal dose (MED) is the number of UVB rays that are required to elicit skin
redness 24 hours after exposure.
A group of 30 people who ate dark chocolate with a lot of flavanols for 12 weeks saw their MED more than double.
If you're going on a beach vacation, eat a lot of dark chocolate in the weeks and months before you go. Even though dark chocolate is good for your skin, you should talk to your doctor or dermatologist first.
7. It can help your brain work better.
The good news isn't over yet. People who eat dark chocolate may also have better brains.
In one study, healthy people who ate high flavanol chocolate for five days had better blood flow to their brains.
Cocoa may also help elderly people with mild cognitive impairment improve their cognitive abilities. It may also help with verbal fluency and a lot of things that make you more likely to get sick.
In addition, cocoa has stimulant compounds like caffeine and theobromine, which may be why cocoa can help people with short-term brain function, like when they're tired or stressed.
8. The treatment may help you think more clearly, prevent memory loss, and improve your mood
No, it’s not your imagination - studies show that consuming dark chocolate with high percentages of cacao, such as 70 percent, may enhance your brain. According to Joy Dubost, Ph.D., RD, a food scientist, registered dietitian, and owner of Dubost Food and Nutrition Solutions in Arlington, Virginia, chocolate stimulates neuronal activity in parts of the brain associated with pleasure and reward, which reduces stress and enhances mood.
Several research has begun to investigate the effects of chocolate on the brain. Eating 48 grams (g) — a little more than 1.5 oz — of 70% cacao organic chocolate boosted neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to build new synaptic connections, which could improve memory, cognition, and mood, according to research presented at the 2018 Experimental Biology meeting.
9. Dark chocolate may help to lower blood sugar levels and lower the risk of diabetes
Although it may not seem like the greatest method to prevent diabetes is to consume chocolate every day, studies have shown that eating moderate amounts of dark chocolate high in cacao, as part of a healthy diet, can enhance how the body metabolizes glucose. StatPearls wrote about insulin resistance in March 2019. That's what it says: Insulin resistance leads to high blood sugar (sugar) levels and is the main sign of type 2 diabetes.
The flavonoids in dark chocolate were found to diminish oxidative stress, which scientists believe is the fundamental cause of insulin resistance, according to a study published in the Journal of Community and Hospital Internal Medicine Perspectives in October 2017. Insulin resistance is minimized by enhancing your body's sensitivity to it, which lowers your risk of disorders like diabetes.
10. Chocolate Is Beneficial to Your Gut Health and Could Aid Weight Loss
Eating chocolate every day may seem like the last thing you'd want to do to lose weight, but the study says dark chocolate may aid with appetite management, which could lead to weight loss. Eat Chocolate, Lose Weight, by neuroscientist Will Clower, Ph.D., shows how consuming a small amount of dark chocolate before or after meals causes hormones to signal to the brain that you're full. Of course, eating more than the daily suggested quantity can negate any weight loss, and dark chocolate will not compensate for the impacts of a bad diet in general.
According to previous studies, chocolate acts as a prebiotic (not to be confused with probiotic), a type of fiber that promotes the growth of healthy bacteria in the stomach, during digestion. The more "good" microorganisms you have in your system, the better your body can absorb nutrients and maintain a healthy metabolism.
lastly:
There is a lot of evidence that cocoa is good for you, especially if you want to keep your heart healthy.
There is no need to eat lots of chocolate every day. Keep in mind that it has a lot of calories, and it's very easy to eat too many.
After dinner, have a few squares and try to enjoy them. Consider creating hot cocoa without any cream or sugar if you want the advantages of cocoa without the calories of chocolate.
Choose high-quality dark chocolate with a cocoa level of 70% or more. Check out this guide to the best dark chocolate.
Dark chocolates usually have some sugar in them, but it's usually in small amounts. The darker the chocolate, the less sugar it has.
Chocolate is
one of the few foods that taste good and is good for you.