Concentrated Dark Chocolate Can Help Your Heart if You Can Stand the Taste

Dr. Roger Corder of Queen Mary University of London reported from a randomized, double-blind study that daily consumption of a 50 Gm dark chocolate bar with 1094 mg of flavonoids lowered the diastolic blood pressure by 5 mg and reduced the brain natriuretic peptide marker for congestive heart failure by 39% over 4 weeks of treatment. The bad news was that the average dark chocolate bar contains only 312 mg of flavonoids per 50 Gm. And the worse news was that even the patients that finished the study complained about the taste. The company that sponsored the study is working on that. See Family Practice News, December, 2012, p. 9. www.healthcelebration.com