Here are 10 illnesses you can cure or prevent with chocolate:
- High Blood Pressure
Chocolate and cocoa contain flavanols, which have both antioxidant qualities and heart-healthy qualities. One of the vascular benefits of eating flavanols is lowering blood pressure.
- High Cholesterol
When consuming chocolate, you’re ingesting flavanoids which have major antioxidant power known to lower the bad kind of cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol. Oxidized LDL-cholesterol damages the arteries and can increase your chances of heart disease or heart attack.
- Liver Disease
Liver disease patients can snack on chocolate because its antioxidant-rich compounds have been found to reduce high blood pressure in the liver and reduce damage to liver blood vessels.
- Diabetes
Eating dark chocolate in moderation has been found to improve processing of blood sugar, which may reduce the risk of diabetes.
- Stress
Chocolate has mood enhancing qualities, as well as stress-busting benefits. Experts have found that chocolate may the ticket to reducing levels of unwanted stress hormones, resulting in happier, healthier people.
- Coughs
Got a persistent cough? Experts have found that theobromine, a compound found in cocoa, can reduce a cough, by affecting the sensory nerve endings of the vagus nerve that run through the airways in the lungs.
- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Instead of drinking a soda or coffee when you feel fatigued, eat a square of chocolate to boost your energy level. In small doses, the caffeine in chocolate will give you a healthy jolt of energy to prevent chronic fatigue.
- Blood Clots
Those who eat chocolate have been found to have slower clumping of blood platelets, which aids in the prevention of blood clots that can cause a heart attack.
- Stroke
The flavanol compound found in chocolate, called epicatechin, has been found to guard against the damage of a stroke.
- Cancer
While chocolate isn’t going to cure cancer, it may have preventative benefits like reducing cell damage that can cause tumor growth.
