Contents:
- Medical Video: Eating dark chocolate may affect our blood pressure
- What's the difference between black chocolate (dark chocolate) with regular chocolate?
- How much dark chocolate is good for consumption?
- How can dark chocolate reduce high blood pressure?
Medical Video: Eating dark chocolate may affect our blood pressure
Cardiovascular disease, aka diseases of the heart and blood vessels, is one of the highest causes of death in the world. High blood pressure can increase risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
In this increasingly advanced era, many people tend to lack physical activity such as exercise, which increases the risk of developing the disease. Lifestyle modification is needed to reduce this risk, in addition to exercise, of course, must be balanced with the right food.
But did you know that many hypotheses say that eating black chocolate is alias dark chocolate can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease?
What's the difference between black chocolate (dark chocolate) with regular chocolate?
Dark chocolate or dark brown is a plant namedTheobrama cacao which is rich in flavonoids. Dark chocolate has a function as a heart protector, including as an antioxidant and inhibitor of platelet activity (platelets).
In addition, eating dark chocolate is known to have advantages in lowering blood pressure in people with hypertension. But this does not mean we can consume dark chocolate excessively, because excessive chocolate consumption also has a negative impact on our health.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration has divided chocolate into several categories based on the cacao content in it, including:
- Unsweetened chocolate: contains 100% cacao
- Bittersweet chocolate: contains 35 - 99% cacao. This type of chocolate consists of 35% unsweetened chocolate and less than 12% milk. This chocolate is also commonly called semisweet, extra dark, or extra bittersweet chocolate.
- Sweet chocolate: contains 15 - 34% cacao, consisting of 15% unsweetened chocolate and 12% milk. This chocolate is sometimes called dark chocolate although it has a lower percentage of cocoa compared to bittersweet.
- Milk chocolate: contains less than 10% unsweetened chocolate, 12% milk, 3.39% milk fat.
How much dark chocolate is good for consumption?
The amount of dark chocolate that should be consumed per day is still much debated. Many studies argue that consuming 500 - 750 mg per day is good for health.
The higher the content of cacao in chocolate, the higher the content of flavonoids. One hundred grams of dark chocolate contains 46 to 61 mg of catechin which is one type of flavonoids, whereas milk chocolate only contains 15 to 16 mg.
How can dark chocolate reduce high blood pressure?
Chocolate beans contain various components, one of which is flavanol (epicatechin and catechin). The antioxidant effects of flavonoids have a great ability to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.
Vinson et al. Showed that chocolate has a high quantity and quality of antioxidant flavonoids compared to fruit, vegetables, red wine, black tea. Clinical studies have found that consumption of dark chocolate can increase levels of HDL or good fats in the blood.
People who have high cholesterol have a high risk of cardiovascular disease. Flavanols can reduce cholesterol absorption. In addition, flavanol is also able to increase good cholesterol levels.
Many studies have suggested that flavanols have a significant effect on the protection of blood vessels, because of the antioxidant and nitric oxide effects they have. Nitric oxide is a chemical compound that exists in the human body, which helps blood vessels to dilate to help lower blood pressure.
