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Is
chocolate really good for you?
February 03, 05
Suzanne Havala Hobbs
Valentine’s Day is coming. Get ready for sweet magazine
and newspaper stories describing health benefits of chocolate.
But when you see the articles, remember the old saw about
things that seem too good to be true, because this is another
case where the evidence doesn’t quite back up the hype.
A couple of messages you’re likely to hear about chocolate,
and the facts:
* “Chocolate contains antioxidants that may reduce the
risk of heart disease.” The facts: Cocoa contains flavonoids,
antioxidants like those found in red wine, fruits and vegetables
that are associated with a reduced risk of coronary artery
disease. Most of the flavonoids in cocoa, however, are removed
during processing, so the candy bars and cocoa you buy in
the store typically contain insignificant amounts.
* “The fat in chocolate doesn’t increase your
risk for heart disease.” The facts: stearic acid, one
of the fats in chocolate, has a neutral effect on blood cholesterol.
However, chocolate also contains palmitic acid, which raises
blood cholesterol levels.
There’s another reason not to go out of your way to
eat chocolate: calories.
Raw cocoa beans are very bitter. Sugar and fat are added to
cocoa to make chocolate edible. Just nine Hershey’s
kisses contain 230 calories. A 150-pound person would need
to walk about an hour at a moderate pace to work off that
number of calories. If you’re overweight, you can’t
afford to spend your exercise time burning off a daily chocolate
fix.
But we’re going to hear more about potential health
benefits of chocolate.
The New York Times Magazine reported in October that Mars,
Inc., which brings in $17 billion in sales annually with products
including M&Ms, Snickers and Dove candy bars, has created
a line of cocoa products concentrated in flavonols, a subcategory
of flavonoids, which it intends to roll out in the near future
when the market appears ready.
And the market is being primed.
The chocolate industry has been funding academic researchers
who have been teasing out potential health benefits of cocoa
flavonols. According to the Times: “In the mid-1990’s
[Mars] undertook a strategy of distributing cash and high-flavanol
cocoa to academics. Mars’s largess was directed almost
exclusively to respected, independent researchers who publish
their results in peer-reviewed journals.”
Such studies are the source of reports you may be reading
now in the popular media.
The reports are based on research such as that of Norman Hollenberg,
a professor at Harvard Medical School, who with colleagues
in 2003 published a paper in The Journal of Hypertension based,
according to the Times, on Mars-funded research.
The research found that flavonol-rich cocoa caused blood vessels
to dilate, potentially protecting heart health.
Research findings such as these – often simplified into
newspaper headlines such as “Chocolate May Be Good For
You” – will pave the way for selling cocoa as
a functional food.
“It’s going to be a billion-dollar market, you
can bet on it,” Hollenberg told the Times. “It’s
going to be on every mother’s shelf. And a year from
now, when the news starts trickling out, every old person
is going to buy it,” he said.
Chocolate as the next health food?
I asked Marion Nestle (no relation to the chocolate company),
author of the book Food Politics and professor of nutrition
at New York University, to comment on the impending chocolate
fad. Her reply:
“Candy is candy, and turning it into a health food is
just silly,” she said. “Sure, chocolate is a plant
extract, and lots of plant extracts have polyphenol flavonoids
with antioxidant and, perhaps, other activities. But so what?
By the time you eat chocolate, it’s loaded with sugar
and added fats. But so what again. It’s candy. Enjoy
it. Just don’t eat too much.”
Sensible advice for all of us chocolate-lovers.
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