Chocolate lovers rejoice. Your indulgence means you are less likely to have a stroke or heart attack, especially if dark chocolate is your thing.
Research shows regularly consuming as little as a square of chocolate a day helps to reduce your blood pressure and thus your chance of succumbing to cardiovascular disease (CVD). Scientists have found that people eating just 7.5g of chocolate daily were at a 39 percent lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke compared with those who ate just 1.7g.
The study, published in the European Heart Journal, found that modest chocolate intake had a significant effect on people’s blood pressure. The benefits were more pronounced for a reduced risk of a stroke, but also brought less chance of a heart attack too.
Researchers led by Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition, made the link after studying the health of 19,357 Germans aged 35 to 65 for at least 10 years. They believe that flavanols, substances in cocoa that boost the body’s supply of nitric oxide, contribute to the chocolate eaters’ lowered blood pressure.
The research confirms an association that other studies have made. The lower likelihood of stroke may be due to cocoa increasing the flow of blood around the brain, the authors say. Among 1,568 participants whose chocolate intake was tracked 57 percent ate milk chocolate, 24 percent preferred dark and 2 percent ate white chocolate. The dark variety contains more flavanols, and so is thought to have a greater effect.
However, these findings should not lead to chocolate gluttony, said the authors. “Given these and other promising health effects of cocoa, it is tempting to indulge more in chocolate” — but further research was needed before small amounts of chocolate could be prescribed to prevent CVD.
“The amount consumed on average by even the highest consumer was about one square of chocolate a day or half a small chocolate Easter egg in a week, so the benefits were associated with a fairly small amount of chocolate,” said Victoria Taylor, the British Heart Foundation’s senior heart health nurse.
Those tempted to indulge should remember that chocolate contains large amounts of calories and saturated fats, which are related to weight gain and high cholesterol — two risk factors for heart disease. And people should also eat fruit, vegetables and oily fish and be active for at least half an hour daily, Taylor said.
While Americans face the upcoming second Donald Trump presidency with bright optimism/existential dread in Taiwan there are also varying opinions on what the impact will be here. Regardless of what one thinks of Trump personally and his first administration, US-Taiwan relations blossomed. Relative to the previous Obama administration, arms sales rocketed from US$14 billion during Obama’s eight years to US$18 billion in four years under Trump. High-profile visits by administration officials, bipartisan Congressional delegations, more and higher-level government-to-government direct contacts were all increased under Trump, setting the stage and example for the Biden administration to follow. However, Trump administration secretary
In mid-1949 George Kennan, the famed geopolitical thinker and analyst, wrote a memorandum on US policy towards Taiwan and Penghu, then known as, respectively, Formosa and the Pescadores. In it he argued that Formosa and Pescadores would be lost to the Chine communists in a few years, or even months, because of the deteriorating situation on the islands, defeating the US goal of keeping them out of Communist Chinese hands. Kennan contended that “the only reasonably sure chance of denying Formosa and the Pescadores to the Communists” would be to remove the current Chinese administration, establish a neutral administration and
A “meta” detective series in which a struggling Asian waiter becomes the unlikely hero of a police procedural-style criminal conspiracy, Interior Chinatown satirizes Hollywood’s stereotypical treatment of minorities — while also nodding to the progress the industry has belatedly made. The new show, out on Disney-owned Hulu next Tuesday, is based on the critically adored novel by US author Charles Yu (游朝凱), who is of Taiwanese descent. Yu’s 2020 bestseller delivered a humorous takedown of racism in US society through the adventures of Willis Wu, a Hollywood extra reduced to playing roles like “Background Oriental Male” but who dreams of one day
Burnt-out love-seekers are shunning dating apps in their millions, but the apps are trying to woo them back with a counter offer: If you don’t want a lover, perhaps you just need a friend? The giants of the industry — Bumble and Match, which owns Tinder — have both created apps catering to friendly meetups, joining countless smaller platforms that have already entered the friend zone. Bumble For Friends launched in July last year and by the third quarter of this year had around 730,000 monthly active users, according to figures from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. Bumble has also acquired the
RSS