A small amount of dark chocolate a day can thin the blood and cut the risk of clots in much the same way as taking aspirin, US researchers have said.
Researchers carried out tests on 139 “chocoholics” who were disqualified from another study because they could not give up their habit.
Researchers have known for almost two decades that dark chocolate can lower blood pressure and has other beneficial effects on blood flow.
But the “chocoholic” group gave the Johns Hopkins team an ideal chance to probe why this might be a little further by carrying out a biochemical analysis.
They carried out tests comparing how long it took platelets taken from the “chocoholics” and others who had not eaten chocolate to clump together when they were run through a mechanical blood vessel system.
Platelets from those who stayed away from chocolate clotted faster, at 123 seconds, compared with 130 seconds for the chocolate group.
Researcher Professor Diane Becker said: “What these chocolate ‘offenders’ taught us is that the chemical in cocoa beans has a biochemical effect similar to aspirin in reducing platelet clumping, which can be fatal if a clot forms and blocks a blood vessel, causing a heart attack.
There are more effective ways of looking after your heart than using chocolate as a medicine
“Eating a little bit of chocolate or having a drink of hot cocoa as part of a regular diet is probably good for personal health, so long as people don’t eat too much of it, and too much of the kind with lots of butter and sugar.”
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