Is Chocolate Good for You? 10 Health Claims Checked

Facebook ↗WhatsApp ↗
0 0 Edit this post
10 Chocolate Health Claims and What the Studies Actually Tested

Is chocolate actually good for you? The honest answer is: cocoa contains compounds called flavanols that have some measurable effects on blood vessels, but most headline claims come from small, short or observational studies, many of them on special cocoa drinks rather than the chocolate bar in your cupboard. Chocolate is also high in sugar, fat and calories. Below are ten popular health claims, what each study really tested, and what the largest trial so far found, so you can enjoy chocolate with realistic expectations.

Cocoa, flavanols and chocolate: why the difference matters

Cocoa beans are rich in polyphenols, mainly flavan-3-ols such as epicatechin. Most of the promising research uses cocoa powder, drinks or capsules with known, high flavanol content. Processing destroys a lot of these compounds: alkalised (“Dutch-processed”) cocoa and milk chocolate usually contain far less than a minimally processed dark chocolate, and labels rarely say how much is left.

So when a study finds a benefit from “cocoa”, it does not automatically mean that eating more chocolate bars will do the same. Keep that in mind as you read the claims below.

Heart, blood pressure and cholesterol

Claim 1: Chocolate lowers blood pressure

This is the best-supported claim, but the effect is small. Researchers led by Karin Ried in Melbourne first pooled about 20 trials in 2012. Their updated Cochrane review in 2017 covered 35 randomised trials with about 1,800 mainly healthy adults. Flavanol-rich cocoa products lowered blood pressure by about 1.8 mmHg on average over two to 18 weeks, with a slightly bigger drop of around 4 mmHg in people who already had high blood pressure. The evidence was rated moderate quality, and industry-funded trials tended to show larger effects. No trial tested long-term daily use or measured heart attacks and strokes.

Claim 2: Chocolate protects against heart disease

A study published in Clinical Nutrition using 4,970 people aged 25 to 93 from the US NHLBI Family Heart Study found that people who ate chocolate more often were less likely to have coronary heart disease. This was a snapshot survey, so it cannot show cause and effect: healthier people may simply feel freer to eat treats, or people with heart disease may have been told to cut back.

Claim 3: Chocolate lowers cholesterol

A 2011 meta-analysis in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition combined ten short clinical trials and found that cocoa products lowered LDL (“bad”) and total cholesterol slightly, with no clear change in HDL. The trials were small and short, and the effect was modest compared with diet changes or medication.

Brain, mood and stress

Claim 4: Chocolate boosts the brain

A 2013 study in Neurology, led by Farzaneh Sorond at Harvard Medical School with funding from the US National Institutes of Health, gave 60 older people (average age 73, without dementia) two cups of cocoa a day for 30 days. Eighteen of them had poor blood-flow responses in the brain at the start, and this group improved on blood-flow measures and a working-memory test. The study was small, short and had no plain-water control group, and it reported similar results whether the cocoa was high or low in flavanols, which makes the cause unclear. Wider reviews still describe chocolate’s cognitive benefits as unproven.

Claim 5: Chocolate lifts your mood

Chocolate is pleasant to eat, and that alone can make people feel better for a while. Popular explanations about serotonin, endorphins or resveratrol (which cocoa contains only in small amounts) are mostly speculation. A 2019 review found no good evidence that chocolate improves depressed mood. If low mood lasts, talk to a doctor rather than relying on food.

Claim 6: Chocolate reduces stress

This claim comes from a 2009 study of 30 adults who ate about 40 g (1.4 oz) of dark chocolate a day for two weeks. Those who reported high anxiety showed lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and of adrenaline-type hormones afterwards. The study was tiny, had no comparison group eating something else, and was funded by a chocolate maker. It is interesting, not conclusive.

Antioxidants, inflammation, skin and pain

Claim 7: Chocolate keeps you young with antioxidants

A 2011 analysis from the Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition, part of the chocolate company, found that cocoa powder and dark chocolate scored higher on laboratory antioxidant tests than some fruit powders, including blueberry and açaí. Test-tube antioxidant scores do not show what happens in the body, and in 2012 the US Department of Agriculture withdrew its popular antioxidant (ORAC) database for that reason. There is no good evidence that eating chocolate prevents arthritis, diabetes or ageing.

Claim 8: Chocolate fights inflammation

A 2008 analysis from Italy’s Moli-sani project looked at several thousand healthy adults and found that people who ate small amounts of dark chocolate had lower levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), a blood marker of inflammation. The lowest levels appeared at modest intakes, around a small piece every few days, not daily large servings. As an observational study, it shows a link, not proof that chocolate lowers inflammation.

Claim 9: Chocolate protects your skin

In a 2006 German study, 24 women drank a specially made cocoa drink every day for 12 weeks. Half got a high-flavanol drink (329 mg) and half a low-flavanol one (27 mg). The high-flavanol group reported about 25% less skin reddening under UV light, plus less roughness and scaling and more skin density and moisture. These were small numbers of people taking a purpose-made drink, not chocolate bars, and it is no substitute for sunscreen.

Claim 10: Chocolate is a natural painkiller

This claim rests on the same 2008 Italian CRP study as claim 8. That study measured an inflammation marker, not pain, so it says nothing about chocolate relieving pain. There is no good evidence that chocolate works as a painkiller.

What the largest trial found

The biggest test so far is the COSMOS trial, run by researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in March 2022. More than 21,000 older US adults took either a daily capsule with 500 mg of cocoa flavanols or a placebo. Total cardiovascular events fell by 10%, a result that was not statistically significant, while cardiovascular deaths, a secondary measure, were 27% lower. The capsules contained no sugar or fat, so the results cannot be applied to chocolate bars, and you would need to eat a lot of chocolate to get that dose.

Regulators have been cautious too. The European Food Safety Authority accepted in 2012 a narrow claim that about 200 mg of cocoa flavanols a day helps maintain normal blood-vessel elasticity, and a later review of 17 studies by researchers at the University of Manitoba judged the blood-pressure evidence too inconsistent to support a formal health claim.

The downsides people forget

  • Calories and sugar. 100 g of milk chocolate has about 540 calories and over 50 g of sugar. Regularly eating a lot of it raises the risk of weight gain, which outweighs any small vascular benefit.
  • Heavy metals. Cocoa can contain lead and cadmium. Some supermarket chocolates have tested close to US voluntary lead limits, which is one more reason for moderation, especially for children.
  • Caffeine and theobromine. Dark chocolate contains both. Large amounts can cause restlessness, headaches or poor sleep in sensitive people.
  • Dogs. Theobromine is toxic to dogs, and dark and baking chocolate are the most dangerous. Keep it out of reach and call a vet if your dog eats some.

How to enjoy chocolate sensibly

  • Choose dark chocolate with a high cocoa percentage if you like it; it tends to contain more flavanols and less sugar.
  • Think in squares, not bars: a small portion a few times a week fits the studies better than a daily slab.
  • Unsweetened, non-alkalised cocoa powder in milk or porridge gives you cocoa with less sugar.
  • Do not use chocolate to manage blood pressure, cholesterol or mood. If you have concerns about any of these, talk to a doctor.

Chocolate is a pleasure with a few interesting chemical extras, not a health food. Enjoy it for what it is.

Sources: Cochrane: Effect of cocoa on blood pressure (2017); Sci.News: COSMOS cocoa flavanol trial (2022); Cosmos Magazine: No evidence to support a formal health claim for cocoa; Wikipedia: Health effects of chocolate; Neurology (2013): Neurovascular coupling, cerebral white matter integrity, and response to cocoa in older people; original list: I Heart Intelligence.

Related:

Labels:

Facebook ↗WhatsApp ↗

COMMENTS

BLOGGER