Would Chocolate Male Lovers Have Lower Stroke Risk?

Chocolate is something that almost everybody likes it. Most chocolate bars or chips are sweet. Eating too many foods that are rich in sugar can put on weight. As we know, overweight always bring along many unwanted medical orders including heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure and stroke.

 

Yet, many past studies have suggested that chocolate fans have lower risk of heart disease and stroke and high blood pressure.

 

Recently, researchers from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden and National Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland suggested that regularly indulging in chocolate snack might actually help men decrease their risk of having a stroke.

 

They reported on September 18, 2012 in the journal ‘Neurology’ that men who ate the most chocolate (typically the equivalent of one-third of a cup of chocolate chips) had a 17 percent lower risk of stroke than men who avoided chocolate.

 

37,103 men in the Cohort of Swedish Men, who aged between 49 and 75, were followed. These men reported on their usual intake of chocolate and other foods. Over the next 10 years, 1,995 men suffered a first-time stroke, which were ascertained from the Swedish Hospital Discharge Registry.

 

Among men in the top 25 percent for chocolate intake, the stroke rate was 73 per 100,000 men per year, comparing to a rate of 85 per 100,000 among men who ate the least chocolate. Even after taking into account of other factors like the men's weight and other diet habits, whether they smoked and whether they had high blood pressure, men who ate the most chocolate had a 17 percent lower stroke risk.

 

According to researchers, the beneficial effect of chocolate consumption on stroke may be related to the flavonoids in chocolate. Past studies have found that flavonoids are compounds that act as antioxidants and may have positive effects on blood pressure, cholesterol and blood vessel function.

 

Nevertheless, people are not advised to eat chocolate just based on the findings. Bearing in mind that negative effects such as obesity and Type-2 diabetes could result for people indulging in chocolate.