What is your favorite chocolate? For me personally, I cannot recall a time that I favored milk chocolate, white chocolate, or any kind of other chocolate over dark chocolate. I have always heard that dark chocolate is "healthier" or better for you than other chocolates, due to its high cacao content, but in what ways does that benefit our health?
Historically, dark chocolate has been used (in its natural cacao form) to augment performance and alleviate disease for thousands of years, dating back to 1000 B.C. in Mesoamerica when they would ferment cacao seed and mix them into a liquid to drink (Higginbotham & Taub, 2015). In some earlier studies, researchers tested the effects of dark chocolate on populations at higher risk for cardiovascular disease using a high-flavanol cocoa drink and found significant improvement in vascular function as well as improved platelet adhesion in heart transplant patients (Higginbotham & Taub, 2015). In a 2015 study, Rull et al. conducted a single center randomized double-blind placebo controlled investigation with a crossover design to compare the effects of high flavanol dark chocolate and low flavanol dark chocolate on blood pressure, heart rate, vascular function and platelet aggregation (Rull et al., 2015). The participants of the study were men with pre-hypertension or mild hypertension. Compared to the baseline values of the participants, the low flavanol dark chocolate significantly increased heart rate, likely due to methylxanthines which cause sympathetic activation through adenosine receptor blockades; however, even though the high flavanol dark chocolate has similar components, it did not increase heart rate, indicating that flavanols modulate sympathetic activation (Rull et al., 2015). In regard to platelet aggregation, both types of dark chocolate contained similar levels of theobromine and caffeine which can act as phosphodiesterase inhibitors, which inhibit platelet aggregation (Rull et al., 2015). The threobromine plays a key role in significantly reducing platelet aggregation, though this may just be due to the fact that threobromine is a PDE inhibitor, as opposed to a direct effect of flavanols (Rull et al., 2015). Even though threobromine may not have a direct effect on heart rate, blood pressure, etc., it is still a component of dark chocolate that may aid in cardiovascular health, such that it can help reduce blood clots.
There is room for more studies on the extent to which flavanols alter cardiovascular risks, though there has been progress so far as to say that flavanols present beneficial effects to cardiovascular health such as lowered heart rate and blood pressure in patients with mild hypertension and risk for blood clots. So next time you're buying some dark chocolate, because it is good for you of course, compare some options and make sure the one you choose has higher levels of flavanol in it!
Higginbotham, E., & Taub, P. R. (2015). Cardiovascular Benefits of Dark Chocolate? Current Treatment Options in Cardiovascular Medicine, 17(12). doi:10.1007/s11936-015-0419-5
Rull, G., Mohd-Zain, Z. N., Shiel, J., Lundberg, M. H., Collier, D. J., Johnston, A., Warner, T. D., & Corder, R. (2015). Effects of high flavanol dark chocolate on cardiovascular function and platelet aggregation. Vascular pharmacology, 71, 70–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vph.2015.02.010
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