Health Benefits Of Chocolate, Antioxidants And Endorphins
Who doesn’t love Springtime? Spring is the season of growth and change, and with it comes plenty of wonderful holidays such as Easter. And of course, with Easter comes, yes, you guessed it: Chocolate! With all the joy and love of Easter, for a lot of us, also comes with a need for larger pants! The kids bring home all sorts of tasty candies and treats, and with them often comes dieter’s guilt. Of course chocolate can definitely cause you to add to your midsection, but fortunately, there have been studies to show that there are some health benefits to it, as well! So here’s an article to relieve all of our chocoholic guilt. – Let’s talk about the health benefits of chocolate!
While you’d have to be in extreme denial to claim that chocolate is rich in nutrients, there are a lot of things it contains that make it more beneficial than you might think! Chocolate is made from cocoa, and cocoa contains several different substances that have been shown to have positive effects on the human body. – Namely, stimulants. Cocoa contains substances that help to raise alertness, clear up a foggy mind, and in general help your awareness. It also contains an amino acid called “tryptophan”. – Tryptophan produces a neurotransmitter serotonin that helps to reduce anxiety and relieve stress, helping to boost a person’s mood. And lastly, cocoa contains endorphins, which are the body’s natural opiates that help to reduce a person’s sensitivity to pain! This is a lot of great stuff! Unfortunately, cocoa doesn’t contain these in large amounts. – Actually, it doesn’t contain much of these at all. To really get the benefits of these substances found in cocoa, you’d have to eat a very unhealthy amount of chocolate, but as an optimist: They are there, and there’s no doubt that they can help to boost your mood and your happiness!
Another amazing benefit of chocolate is its antioxidant level. – For those of you who haven’t heard, antioxidants are the things that health nuts and Hollywood celebrities alike are going crazy over! Antioxidants are agents that your body absorbs to protect it from free radicals. Free radicals are harmful to your body, causing everything from early aging to the development of cancer! And it just so happens that chocolate is rich in antioxidants. – More so even, than blueberries! The chocolate type with the most antioxidants is dark, but milk chocolate comes behind in second, with roughly half the amount of antioxidants as dark chocolate. – In fact, a 40 gram serving of milk chocolate is equal in antioxidant levels to an entire glass of red wine!
Perhaps the greatest benefit to your health that chocolate has though is for your cardiovascular system. Recent studies have shown that chocolate is very good for nearly your entire cardiovascular system. A substance found in cocoa helps the body produce Nitric Oxide, a key player in healthy blood pressure and heart health. By helping the body to process this compound more efficiently, it helps to ensure that the blood is flowing at a healthy rate and workload on the heart is reduced. Chocolate further helps regulate blood flow by keeping blood platelets at normal amounts, thinning the blood. Keeping blood appropriately thin can help reduce the risk of developing clots and stroke.
While there is no denying that chocolate is fattening, and that eating too much of it can really help you pack on the pounds, there are some upsides to eating it, too! It is typically recommended that to receive the maximum health benefits of chocolate, you should consume it about 4-5 times per month. This of course, is a pretty conservative number considering it is the Easter season, and obviously very few of us are going to stray from our Easter sweets! So to alleviate that chocoholic guilt, just remember: Chocolate can be good for you, too!
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Tags: Health
