Scientists have been touting the health benefits of chocolate for years, but some would argue that it has taken a few millennia for the scientific consensus to come full circle to what the ancient Mesoamericans knew about cacao's invigorating qualities. Of course, at the time, a cup of cocoa was a frothing, heady concoction of chillies, corn meal and dried, ground cacao beans – a far cry from your average corner café hot chocolate. But new research has all but confirmed what even the Aztecs and Mayans suspected about chocolate's medicinal properties and benefits to heart health.
Conducted for the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health Study at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre (BIDMC), in collaboration with researchers at the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health and the Aalborg University and Institute of Cancer Epidemiology in Denmark, the new research, published in the journal Heart, found that consuming moderate amounts of chocolate led to significantly lower risks of atrial fibrillation, a common and potentially life threatening type of irregular heartbeat.
Focus on chocolate:
