It's a dangerous time of year for a chocoholic. Chocolate rabbits and eggs abound. But a weakness for the cocoa bean might not be a bad thing. Those who indulge more frequently seem to seem to actually have lower body mass indexes (BMI's).
Researchers surveyed more than one thousand adults to see how often they ate chocolate each week. Those who indulged more frequently consumed more calories and more saturated fat than others, but the frequent chocolate eaters still had, on average, lower BMI's. The results are in archives of Internal Medicine, and no, the study was not funded by Hershey, Nestle, or even the Cadbury Bunny.
Dark chocolate has been linked to better heart health, and this study supports previous findings that certain chocolate compounds CAN have metabolic benefits. The research can't prove that chocolate was behind all the smaller behinds, and it's possible that some people WILL add pounds from their chocolate habit. The only sure way to find out will be to conduct a randomized, controlled study, which leaves me with only one question: where do I sign up?
