Large Harvard Study Adds to Evidence That Chocolate Could Have Heart Health Benefits

To be clear: there’s good reason to be skeptical of sensationalist science headlines claiming disasters and/or miracles linked to foods, social behaviors, and a whole host of other bizarre things. But sometimes research adds up to a compelling picture of health links.

The analysis conducted by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Danish scientists involved more than 55,500 people. Those who ate two to six servings per week had a 20% lower chance of the irregular heartbeats, or atrial fibrillation, one of the major contributors to clots, stroke, and heart failure. Slightly lower, regular chocolate consumption showed similar (albeit less pronounced) results, according to the research published in the BMJ.

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And it’s not the first such analysis to imply this connection (once again: correlation doesn’t imply causation). “Our study adds to the accumulating evidence on the health benefits of moderate chocolate intake and highlights the importance of behavioral factors for potentially lowering the risk of arrhythmias,” said lead study author Elizabeth Mostofsky, as the Harvard Gazette reports.

“Despite the fact that most of the chocolate consumed by the study participants likely had relatively low concentrations of potentially protective ingredients, we still observed a significant association between eating chocolate and a lower risk of atrial fibrillation — suggesting that even small amounts of cocoa consumption can have a positive health impact,” Mostofsky continued.

Of course, this is no excuse to go crazy on the cocoa.

“Eating excessive amounts of chocolate is not recommended because many chocolate products are high in calories from sugar and fat and could lead to weight gain and other metabolic problems,” the authors write. “But moderate intake of chocolate with high cocoa content may be a healthy choice.”