Chocolate Sauce

In the past, I’ve made a few posts regarding dark chocolate and hypertension. Here’s a link to a brief article that reminds us that indeed, research indicates that dark chocolate can improve blood pressure and may improve cholesterol levels and insulin sensitivity.
http://www.ephit.com/coventry_contest/chocolate.htm
The article also points out that processing removes much of the benefits of the [...]

One of the things I mention in my disclaimer is to do your own research. One reason for that is ultimately, each of us is responsible for our own health. Your health care provider can’t know everything and can’t keep up with all the research that is constantly presented. You should, of course, tell him/her [...]

My personal feeling has been that eating a food, as close to nature as possible, is better than taking a pill of concentrated essence of whatever. The article below lends credence to that view.
CTV.ca | Antioxidant pills don’t prevent heart disease
The study, done at Brigham & Women’s hospital, followed 8,171 women with three or more [...]

Nutrition & Metabolism | Full text | Chocolate and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease: A Systematic Review
I came across the study above a while ago, but am just getting around to mentioning it in this blog. This study is not primary research, but rather a review of all MEDLINE publications from 1966 through January 2005 looking [...]

Sounds kinda gross. And wow, would the sand ever stick to you at the beach! Not really:-) This article says the preliminary results of a German study show that eating chocolate rich in cocoa solids and flavonoids (in other words, dark chocolate) can fight skin cancer. Subjects were given cocoa to drink. Half the group [...]

Norman Hollenberg, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School says that epicatechin, one of the flavonoids in cacao, has such powerful health benefits, it “may rival penicillin and anaesthesia in terms of importance to public health.” He thinks it is so important it should be considered a vitamin.
He has spent years studying the Kuna [...]

I subscribe to a newsletter from Harvard Medical School. The most recent issue reminds us that inflammation, while an important part of our body’s healing system, can be dangerous, if there is too much of it. Inflammation is involved in atherosclerosis, heart disease, strokes and even some types of dementia. Below is a link to [...]

The University of Barcelona reports that rats fed a cocoa-enriched diet had “significant increases in the total antioxidant capacity in all the body tissues, particularly in the thymus.” The article can be found at the link below.
Cocoa-rich diet may boost thymus antioxidant defences
A link to the abstract is here.
The amount of cocoa that was fed [...]

Here’s an article about a German study that found that dark chocolate may have a small benefit on blood pressure.
Dark Chocolate a Comfort to Early Blood Pressure – Breaking Medical News + CME Teaching Brief® – MedPage Today
I imagine the dark chocolate that was used was still alkalized and processed. Wouldn’t it be great to [...]

Who woulda thunk that you could offset the effects of a meal high in saturated fat by eating another food high in fat–walnuts.
Eating a meal high in saturated fat causes our veins and arteries to narrow, stiffen and the lining to become sticky. This article from RealAge tells us a few things we can do [...]