EBN- Eating dark chocolate regularly helps reduce the risk of diabetes, according to a long-term American study published in the British Medical Journal.
Eating five servings of dark chocolate per week is linked to a 21% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the study says.
Chocolate contains natural compounds known as flavonols, which promote heart health and reduce the risk of diabetes, but the relationship between eating chocolate and the risk of diabetes has remained controversial due to the results of conflicting studies.
Benefits of chocolate
Most previous studies have focused on chocolate consumption in general, without distinguishing between dark chocolate and milk chocolate, which differ in cocoa, milk and sugar content.
To explore this aspect, the researchers analyzed data from three long-term American studies, which included 192,000 participants who did not have diabetes, heart disease, or cancer when they joined the study.
The researchers relied on periodic dietary questionnaires to analyze the relationship between chocolate consumption and diabetes risk.
Over a 25-year follow-up period, more than 18,000 participants developed type 2 diabetes. The results showed that eating five weekly servings of any type of chocolate reduced the risk of diabetes by 10%.
Chocolate and Diabetes
It is expected that the number of people with type 2 diabetes will reach 700 million by 2045.
When analyzing different types of chocolate, researchers found that eating five weekly servings of dark chocolate reduced the risk of diabetes by 21%, while no association was found between milk chocolate consumption and diabetes risk.
It was also noted that each additional weekly serving of dark chocolate reduced the risk by an additional 3%, while milk chocolate consumption was associated with long-term weight gain.
Although dark chocolate contains similar levels of energy and saturated fat to milk chocolate, researchers have shown that the high levels of flavanols in dark chocolate may offset the effects of fat and sugar, reducing the risk of metabolic diseases such as diabetes.
The researchers concluded that eating dark chocolate, but not milk chocolate, was associated with a lower risk of diabetes, and called for randomized controlled trials to confirm the findings and study the mechanisms behind them.
Although the study suggests potential benefits of regularly eating dark chocolate, it calls for caution in interpreting the results due to its observational nature.
