Sweet News for Chocolate Lovers
Reported February 12, 2010
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — New research shows eating chocolate may lower your risk of having a stroke. Eating chocolate in moderation may also decrease risk of death following a stroke.
One study shows people who ate one serving of chocolate each week were 22 percent less likely to have a stroke than people who ate no chocolate. In another study, researchers found people who ate 50 grams of chocolate once a week were 46 percent less likely to die after suffering a stroke than those who did not eat chocolate.
The link between chocolate and stroke may be because chocolate contains high amounts antioxidants called flavonoids, which protect against stroke, experts say.
“More research is needed to determine whether chocolate truly lowers stroke risk, or whether healthier people are simply more likely to eat chocolate than others,” study author Sarah Sahib, of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, was quoted as saying.
Source: Presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 62nd Annual Meeting, April 10-17, 2010, Toronto