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 [...]

If you’re like me, you might feel like you’ve been dropped in a vat of alphabet soup when you read about anti-aging or antioxidants. I’m no microbiologist or even a whiz at word games, but I’ll give a shot at trying to ’splain some of the acronyms involved in the articles about which I post.
Since [...]

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 [...]

I’m often asked about the different types of fats & how they interact with blood lipids. Here’s a very good summary of “The Facts on Fats.”
Discovery Health :: The Facts on Fats
In a nutshell:

trans-fat–really bad (lowers “good” cholesterol, raises “bad” cholesterol)
saturated fat–bad when overdone (raises total cholesterol)
mono & polyunsaturated–good in moderation (depending on the source, [...]

A recently completed four-week double-blind study on 160 subjects showed that consumption of cocoa powder reduced LDL and raised HDL. There have been quite a few studies that have shown the reduction of “bad” cholesterol and the increase of “good” cholesterol. Another interesting finding of the study was that oxidized LDL was reduced. Oxidized LDL [...]