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A Kiss A Day

by Brick ONeil

dark-chocolate-bar.jpgFrom www.WebMD.com:

Dark Chocolate May Help Blood Pressure
Eating 30 Calories Per Day of Dark Chocolate May Lower High Blood Pressure

The health benefits of dark chocolate may include lowering high blood pressure, German researchers report.

But overindulging in dark chocolate might blow your calorie budget, and packing on pounds could raise blood pressure. So portion control may help you have your dark chocolate and reap its health benefits, the new study suggests.

Small amounts of dark chocolate “efficiently reduced blood pressure,” report the researchers, who included Dirk Taubert, MD, PhD, of Germany’s University Hospital of Cologne.

How small is a small amount of dark chocolate? Participants in Taubert’s study were limited to 30 calories per day of dark chocolate. That’s roughly the number of calories in a Hershey’s Kiss.

Dark Chocolate Benefit?
Taubert’s study included 44 adults aged 56-73 in Duisburg, Germany.

The 24 women and 20 men had mild high blood pressure (hypertension) or borderline blood pressure that fell just short of hypertension. They were otherwise healthy and weren’t taking blood pressure drugs or nutritional supplements.

Taubert’s team split participants into two similar groups.

One group got 30-calorie daily doses of dark chocolate for 18 weeks. The researchers checked the amount of cocoa in the German chocolate bars.

For comparison, the other group got a similar daily dose of “white chocolate,” which doesn’t contain chocolate liquor or cocoa.

Both groups got the same instructions: Take your chocolate dose two hours after dinner, don’t change your normal diet and fitness habits, and keep a diet and exercise diary.

Read more by clicking above.

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