WASHINGTON 鈥� Everyone calm down. It鈥檚 only one study, and even one of the authors says you shouldn鈥檛 take it too literally. Read all the caveats 鈥� please.
All right, here it is: Eating chocolate can be good for your heart. Even lots of it.
A study in the journal says that eating the equivalent of two Hershey鈥檚 bars 鈥� about 100 grams 鈥� of chocolate had a lower risk of heart disease, reports.
Wait! You鈥檙e headed to the cabinet right now, aren鈥檛 you? Stop.
Phyo Myint, one of the lead authors of the study, told The Washington Post, 鈥淭he main message is that you don’t need to worry too much if you are only moderately eating chocolate.鈥�
Chocolate is full of flavonoid antioxidants, and can increase the good HDL cholesterol and lower the bad LDL variety.
But while the big sample size 鈥� 25,000 鈥� is promising, Myint says that means thousands of people didn鈥檛 see any benefits to eating chocolate. Indeed, he said, 鈥渟ome people had worse outcomes.鈥�
Charles Mueller, a professor at New York University, told the Post that cocoa beans have healthy chemicals also found in red peppers, green peppers and broccoli, but 鈥渋f you are overweight, and you are thinking of protecting yourself by eating chocolate you are being kind of silly,鈥� he said.
