Eating six bars of chocolate a week ‘prevents common heart condition’
You might think that eating six bars of Dairy Milk was a bad habit – and the sort of thing that your doctor might sternly warn you against.
But there is at least one health upside to guzzling down a bar of chocolate a day, according to a new Harvard study.
Research involving more than 50,000 people found that eating between two and six portions of chocolate reduced the risk of a heart condition known as ‘heart flutter’.
Previous research into the subject focused on dark chocolate – but the new Danish study included people eating milk chocolate bars as well.
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Men who ate two to six portions of chocolate per week had a 23% lower risk of developing atrial fibrillation – and women who ate one portion a week had a 21% lower risk.
One in four people in the UK develop atrial fibrillation during their lifetimes – which causes and irregular and abnormally fast heart rate.
The researchers believe that chocolate might help because it is high in flavonoids.
The reseachers write, ‘Despite the fact that most of the chocolate consumed in our sample probably contained relatively low concentrations of the potentially protective ingredients, we still observed a robust statistically significant association.’
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