Give Your Heart Some Love
Thanks so much to everyone who attended our Dark Chocolate and Red Wine event on Friday, February 12th. We all got a little heart smarter and had a good time in the process. Think you know why dark chocolate and red wine are good for your heart? Check out the this video we filmed at the event:
Ever caught yourself sipping a glass of red wine and thinking, “This is so healthy for my heart. I think I’ll have another?” Have you ever lingered over a bar of dark chocolate trying to remember where it was you read that it will help you live forever? It’s human nature to indulge our indulgences, but what’s the real deal? What are the potential heart health benefits of red wine and dark chocolate?
Red Wine
Here’s the good news: moderate amounts of alcohol can increase good cholesterol (HDL-cholesterol) and thin your blood. Red wine, just like any other alcohol, provides these benefits. So how much is moderate? Here are the latest recommendations:
- Men: No more than two drinks per day.
- Women: No more than one drink per day.
One drink is a 5-ounce glass of red or white wine, 12 ounces of regular beer (1 bottle) or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.
We also know, for a fact, that red wine contains antioxidants called polyphenols. Antioxidants protect our cells from harmful substances called free radicals. Free radicals are produced when your body breaks down food or is exposed to nasty environmental hazards like tobacco smoke or radiation. Polyphenols are particularly good at protecting the lining of blood vessels in your heart.
The antioxidants in red wine come in two forms: flavonoids and nonflavonoids.
Flavonoids are found in lots of foods, including oranges, grape juice, apples, onions, tea and cocoa. Other types of alcohol, such as white wine and beer, contain small amounts but red wine has higher levels.
Nonflavonoids are interesting because they appear to help prevent arteries from becoming clogged with fatty blockages. Resveratrol is a nonflavonoid that’s recently received a lot of attention from researchers. Red wine provides much more resveratrol than white wine because the skin is kept on the grape longer during red wine making, increasing the amount of resveratrol in the wine.
Studies show that resveratrol could help to prevent the development of numerous diseases including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Some research links resveratrol to reducing the risk of inflammation and blood clotting. However, these findings were reported only in mice, not in people. To get the same benefit from resveratrol used in the studies, a person would have to drink 100 to 1,000 bottles of red wine a day. Please don’t try that at home.
Dark Chocolate
Remember those flavonoids you get from red wine? Dark chocolate has them, too. When cocoa is processed into chocolate, it goes through several steps to reduce its naturally bitter taste. Flavonoids are what make cocoa taste bitter.The more it’s processed the more flavonoids are lost. Dark chocolate is processed less so it retains the highest level of flavonoids. Milk chocolate not so much. In fact, milk may even prevent your body from absorbing the antioxidants in chocolate.
Eating dark chocolate can also lower high blood pressure in patients with mild hypertension. In a study from 2003, patients with high blood pressure were given a 100-gram bar of dark chocolate every day for two weeks. They were asked to balance its 480 calories by not eating other foods similar in calories. Participants in the study showed a drop in blood pressure by an average of 5 points for systolic (top number) and an average of 2 points for diastolic blood pressure (bottom number). But, remember, you have to balance the extra calories by eating less of other things.
What about the fat in chocolate? As it turns out chocolate isn’t all that bad. The fat in chocolate is made up of oleic acid (a heart-healthy unsaturated fat also found in olive oil), stearic acid, and palmitic acid. Stearic acid doesn’t raise or lower cholesterol either way. Palmitic acid does raise cholesterol levels but it only accounts for one-third of the fat calories in chocolate. For the record, that’s 1/3 good, 1/3 bad, and 1/3 neutral. It kind of evens out, doesn’t it?
Chocolate selectivity is key to healthy consumption. Caramel, marshmallow, nut-filled ooey gooey monstrosities aren’t heart healthy in the slightest. On the other hand, a small piece of dark chocolate a few days a week is nothing to feel guilty about.
