The kind of study results I thoroughly approve of and would like to believe!!
If only I was also convinced that it was entirely unbiased. It sounds like one of those studies which, if it had shown that chocolate was poisonous, would somehow have not been published.
A new paper in Archives of Internal Medicine:
Association Between More Frequent Chocolate Consumption and Lower Body Mass Index Beatrice A. Golomb, MD, PhD; Sabrina Koperski, BS; Halbert L. White, PhD Arch Intern Med. 2012;172(6):519-521. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.2100
Summary: Chocolate has shown favorable metabolic associations with blood pressure (BP), insulin sensitivity,and cholesterol level. Chocolate is rich in antioxidant phytonutrients like catechins that could contribute to favorable relationships of chocolate consumption to insulin sensitivity and BP. However, because chocolate is often consumed as a sweet and bears calories, there are concerns related to its intake.
Body mass index (BMI) is part of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) picture, and other MetS elements relate favorably to moderate chocolate consumption. Therefore, we hypothesized that the benefits of modest frequent chocolate intake might extend to reduced fat deposition, potentially offsetting the added calories. To evaluate this, we examined the cross-sectional relationship of chocolate consumption frequency to BMI.
Even the BBC carries a report. It is only to be expected that chocolate sales will now increase for a while till this study passes from memory.
Even though chocolate is loaded with calories, it contains ingredients that may favour weight loss rather than fat synthesis, scientists believe. Despite boosting calorie intake, regular chocolate consumption was related to lower BMI in the study, which is published in Archives of Internal Medicine.
The link remained even when other factors, like how much exercise individuals did, were taken into account. And it appears it is how often you eat chocolate that is important, rather than how much of it you eat. The study found no link with quantity consumed. According to the researchers, there is only one chance in a hundred that their findings could be explained by chance alone.
But the findings only suggest a link – not proof that one factor causes the other.
Lead author Dr Beatrice Golomb, from the University of California at San Diego, said: “Our findings appear to add to a body of information suggesting that the composition of calories, not just the number of them, matters for determining their ultimate impact on weight.” …
Tags: Archives of Internal Medicine, BMI, Body mass index, chocolate
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