A pleasing and healthful Valentine's gift for a lady is chocolate. Forty percent of women "need" chocolate, and many more just love it.
Chocolate contains many substances in small amounts that have desirable psychological effects, such as mild euphoria, excitement, and tranquility. Theobromine, a substance found in chocolate, is Greek for "food of the Gods" and is a mild stimulant. Many find chocolate anchored to pleasant events and feelings in one's life.
However, there are health benefits to dark chocolate and cocoa as well. These come from the cocoa bean itself. Milk chocolate and processed chocolate have less of these good things, which are destroyed in manufacture and diluted by sugar, artificial sweeteners, and other ingredients.
In a study by an international team of scientists from the University of Dusseldorf Germany; the University of California, Davis; Mars, Incorporated; and Harvard University, it was found that certain flavanols in cocoa have a relaxing effect on blood vessels, lowering blood pressure.
The Nitric Oxide Connection
In 1987, Salvador Moncada, Director of the Wolfsan Institute, University College, London, discovered that the inner cells of blood vessels are constantly producing nitric oxide, which keeps the blood vessels in a relaxed state.
Meanwhile, on islands off Panama, the Kuna Indians were drinking four or five cups of cocoa a day and use chocolate in their food. Dr. Norman Hollenberg, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, found that high blood pressure in this population was rare. They all had high levels of flavanols and nitric oxide metabolites in their blood.
In contrast, Kuna on the mainland, who drink less coca or none at all, had the same blood pressure problems as everyone else.
The conclusion of all these studies is that the flavanols in the cocoa bean keep the inner cells of the cell walls of blood vessels producing relaxing nitric oxide.
Mars, Inc. was very happy to find chocolate has nutritive value and proceeded to change their processing to preserve it.
Enjoy your dark chocolate knowing that your endothelial cells may be enjoying it too.
Sources:
http://www.absw.org.uk/briefings/nitric%20oxide.htm
http://www.dfhcc.harvard.edu/membership/member-profile/member/586/0/
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-03/wsw-nss030607.php
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