Many times people are confused over what is good for us and what is bad. Many mistakenly believe that drinking bottled water and milk are good for you and that things like eggs and this wonderful food item are bad for you.
This particular study looked at over 114,000 participants across multiple studies to really answer the question about whether chocolate was good for us. I’ve seen a study where chocolate, in patients who have already had a heart attack, was more powerful at preventing a second heart attack than any medication available (66% reduction in heart deaths).
The authors determined that, at the highest intakes of chocolate there was a 37% reduction in the cases of heart disease and 29% reduction in stroke. This is pretty powerful for an “intervention” like chocolate. Compare this with statins, which have side effects and are massively expensive–can you imagine the wonderful chocolate you could get for $3 / day!
And, we have to consider that these studies did not focus entirely on dark chocolate. If they did, the protective effect was likely to be even higher. Combine your dark chocolate (the higher the cacao content the better) with some raw nuts and we’ll all have to take up smoking just to have any risk for a heart attack…