Dark Chocolate Each Day - An Alternative to Asprin?

A bite of gourmet dark chocolate could help your blood flow!

Could dark chocolate have the same effects on thinning the blood as asprin? Here's a great article from BBC News about a recent study by Johns Hopkins University in Chicago. Here's more from the article:


"....Researchers carried out tests on 139 "chocoholics" who were disqualified from another study because they could not give up their habit. Previous research has suggested that chocolate is good for the heart. The study, by Johns Hopkins University, featured at an American Heart Association meeting in Chicago.

The Johns Hopkins team started out examining the effects of aspirin on platelets, the tiny solid particles in blood that clump together to form a clot.

However, 139 people who signed up for the study were disqualified because they were unable to give up eating chocolate as required. Researchers have known for almost two decades that dark chocolate can lower blood pressure and has other beneficial effects on blood flow.
But the "chocoholic" group gave the Johns Hopkins team an ideal chance to probe why this might be a little further by carrying out a biochemical analysis.

They carried out tests comparing how long it took platelets taken from the "chocoholics" and others who had not eaten chocolate to clump together when they were run through a mechanical blood vessel system.



Platelets from those who stayed away from chocolate clotted faster, at 123 seconds, compared with 130 seconds for the chocolate group. Researcher Professor Diane Becker said: "What these chocolate 'offenders' taught us is that the chemical in cocoa beans has a biochemical effect similar to aspirin in reducing platelet clumping, which can be fatal if a clot forms and blocks a blood vessel, causing a heart attack."

Read the rest of this fascinating study here.