Many news organizations ran stories last fall extolling certain health benefits of chocolate. But it turns out the studies that the articles were based on didnt go quite so far. The CBC is running a pair of stories debunking chocolates benefits to the average consumer: Scientists have zeroed in on a family of fragile molecules known as cocoa flavanols. Research suggests they can relax blood vessels, improve blood flow and, as Small found in his study, even increase activity in a part of the brain involved with age related memory loss. But those flavanols largely disappear once the cocoa bean is heated, fermented and processed into chocolate. In other words, making chocolate destroys the very ingredient that is supposed to make it healthy. That’s why Small’s memory study used a highly concentrated powder prepared exclusively for research by Mars Inc., the chocolate company, which also partially funded the study. ... There are lots of foods that contain potentially healthy flavanols, along with other bioactive compounds in complex combinations. So the question is: Would academic scientists in publicly funded institutions be so interested in the cocoa bean if the chocolate industry wasnt supporting so much of the research?
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 23:51:57 +0000
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