General food article

Health benefits of chocolate: Eating dark chocolate can be a tasty way to reduce stress

Stressed out? Have some chocolate! A new study provides evidence for the health benefits of chocolate. Based on the results of the study, eating dark chocolate daily may be a way to reduce stress.

The results of a study done by the research team of Sunil Kochhar of the Nestle Research Center in Switzerland suggest potential benefits of eating dark chocolate for reduction of mental and/or physical stress and improvement of the metabolic response to stress.

They performed a clinical trial on a population of 30 human subjects. Using validated psychological questionnaires, subject were classified in low and high anxiety traits. Urine and blood plasma were collected during 3 test days at the beginning, midtime and at the end of the two-week study.

Eating 40 g of dark chocolate daily for up to 14 days resulted in a significant modification of the metabolism of healthy and free living human volunteers. The amount of dark chocolate consumed (40 g) in this study was a little less than 1.4 ounces of regular-sized Hershey’s bar.

The metabolic impact of a daily intake of dark chocolate was strongly dependent on the dispositional stress state of the subjects. Statistically significant metabolic effects were observed only in subjects with inherent high anxiety trait.

Dark chocolate consumption resulted in the reduction of levels of catecholamines, such as, adrenaline, noradrenaline, normetanephrine as well as corticosterone and the stress hormone, cortisol, in the urine from subjects with high dispositional stress.

The results of the study supports growing scientific evidence that dark chocolate provides antioxidants and other health benefits. The antioxidants in dark chocolate may reduce stress as well as other risk factors for heart disease and other conditions.

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