Chocolate may prevent obesity and diabetes

Chocolate may prevent obesity and Type 2 diabetes, new research from the Department of Food Science and Technology at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University says.

More than a third of U.S. adults are obese, putting them at high risk for developing Type 2 diabetes.

Past studies have suggested that chocolate -- as well as wine and berries -- can yield these health benefits, but researchers looked specifically at chocolate rich in the antioxidant flavanol.

Not all flavonols are created equal, however. Andrew P. Neilson and colleagues tested each flavanol individually and found that oligomeric polymeric procyandins (PCs) returned the most optimal health benefits.

"Oligomeric PCs appear to possess the greatest anti-obesity and anti-diabetic bioactivities of the flavanols in cocoa, particularly at the low doses employed for the present study," researchers stated in a press release.

The scientists fed groups of mice different diets, including high-fat and low-fat diets, and high-fat diets supplemented with different kinds of flavonols, over a 12-week period. High-fat diets containing the compound oligomeric PCs significantly lowered the mice's weight and improved glucose tolerance.

The study, published in the Journal of Agricultural Food and Chemistry, determined that oligomeric PCs were responsible for preventing weight gain and lowering blood glucose levels, which would lower one's risk for Type 2 diabetes.

The news follows a Louisiana State University study claiming that dark chocolate can also reduce blood pressure and improve heart health. Researchers say dark chocolate is beneficial because of the way our guts ferment the fiber in cocoa beans, according to the Daily Mail.

Interestingly, Medical News Today also recently released a report saying that eating 70 g of dark chocolate every day could reduce the risk of atherosclerosis. However, these benefits cannot be attributed to flavonols as participants eating regular dark chocolate saw the same results as those eating chocolate with added flavonols.

"Additional studies of prolonged feeding of flavanol fractions in vivo are needed to further identify the fractions with the highest bioactivities and, therefore, the greatest potential for translation to human clinical applications at reasonable doses," Neilson's team wrote, according to Medical News Today.