Dr Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist in Germany, led research to try to prove that chocolate will lower your blood pressure and reduce the risk of getting heart disease. The article, Chocolate Might Reduce Blood Pressure and Risk of Heart Disease, Research Suggests, came out on April 4, 2010 in the European Heart Journal, and the link to the article is http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100330092809.htm.
Frank Ruschitzka a professor of cardiology explained the findings of the research with this "basic science has demonstrated quite convincingly that dark chocolate particularly, with a cocoa content of at least 70%, reduces oxidative stress and improves vascular and platelet function." They have been researching this for eight years and so far their evidence proves true, but they still need to research for longer and test more people. The people in the study would receive a medical examination, where their height and weight would be taken, blood pressure would be checked, and they would answer a survey about how often they eat a 50g bar of chocolate. There were follow up questionnaires were sent out every two or three years up until 2006, where the participants would tell whether they had a heart attack or stroke.
They provided evidence that shows that people that eat at least 6 grams of chocolate, of any kind, every day then their chances of a heart attack would lower by 39%. With more research they found out the dark chocolate may have the most effect on people because of the greater amount of flavanols. To me this connects with class because we always talk about how often people get a disease and it is ironic, and growing up we are always told junk food is bad for you. In this case the researchers say not to eat a lot but have a small intake that replaces other energy-dense foods, like snacks. I think this article is great because it shows that something so little could help your chances of not having a heart attack or stroke. I would love to see what their further research is able to prove fully.
This article is seems very interesting. It is ironic how our parents and doctors have alway steared us against consuming junk food, yet it is now being shown that chocolate can help prevent heart disease. I have heard before that some dark chocolate is good for you, however I was unaware of the specific ingredients and the fact that it is connected to the prevention of strokes. I completely agree about what Sam said about the article connecting to our class and the irony of some diseases. Like Sam, I am curious to see what other information these scientists' research yields.
ReplyDeleteI thought this was a very good article. I have always been told that dark chocolate is good for your heart but know it is proven by doctors that it can even help prevent disease. I do agree with both Sam and Natalie on how this article connects with our class. Parents are always telling you not to eat so much junk food and here we find out that some junk food can be good for you. So chocolate is good for you, but I think that some poeple when they find this out might eat all the chocolate they can in hopes of bettering their health, which is not so good for them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Natalie that it is very ironic that people usually advize you to not eat a lot of chocolate because it isnt good for when some chocolate in fact is good for you. I have heard before that dark chocolate can be good for you like Taylor said, but I still thought it was interesting that this article stated how chocolate can decrease the risk of contracting disease.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what everyone before me has said and I thought that this article was very interesting. I think it's really cool to see how the scientist with this hypothesis went about testing to see if it was true. I wonder how many people were a part of the trial and if they all answered honestly at the end about how much chocolate they had eaten. I think it very interesting to see how research like this is done and the conclusion that they came to. I'll definitely be eating more dark chocolate now, that's for sure...
ReplyDeleteI am just going to jump on the bandwagon and agree with all of the previous statements. This was really a fascinating article! I wonder with Rachel about honesty as a huge variant in this experiment, because I know I'm not always honest with the amount of chocolate I eat! It's exciting to me to hear that dark chocolate is good for you. Over all, an excellent article!
ReplyDeleteCool article, Sam! It is always nice to come across an article that interests me personally because it makes the article that much more fun to read and that much easier to connect to other things that I am learning in class. Chocolate being one of my favorite things, this article really caught my attention. I never considered the fact that chocolate may play a role in lowering blood pressure and reducing the risk of heart disease. I agree that the fact that this is ironic because we were always told growing up that chocolate was considered junk food and that junk food was considered bad for you and this article is saying the exact opposite. It's cool how this article, along with many things we discuss in class sometimes end up having a touch of irony. Just to make another connection, a lot of times people associate chocolate with giving you acne but I once read an article in a magazine about how dark chocolate is actually very rich in antioxidents which are very good for your skin.
ReplyDeletePersonally I thought this article is awesome. Everyone associated chocolate with being unhealthy and bad for you. I like that for once we are hearing that chocolate may actually be able to HELP you. Chocolate gets a bad reputation for giving you acne and oily skin and making you fat. Sure chocolate is high in calories and sugar, but unless you're eating an entire chocolate bar a day I don't think that it could hurt your weight as much as people lead on. I'm glad that something positive is finally being said about chocolate :)
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