Dr. John Day, Cardiologist

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The Top 3 Dark Chocolate Health Benefits

Could there actually be dark chocolate health benefits?  How could something that tastes so good, be good for you?  Read on to learn about a medical mystery and the top three health benefits of dark chocolate.

Chocolate, High Blood Pressure, and Kuna Indians

In 1944, an obscure army surgeon, Dr. B. H. Kean, was stationed in the Panama Canal Zone by the U.S. army.  While there, he noticed that the Kuna Indians, who lived on the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama, didn’t get high blood pressure.  Even as they aged, their blood pressure still stayed in the very healthy 110/70 mmHg range.

Dr. Kean published his observations in 1944, but no one paid attention.  In fact, for the next 50 years, his findings lay buried in a medical journal.  It wasn’t until the 1990s that Harvard physician and hypertension researcher, Dr. Norman Hollenberg , discovered Dr. Kean’s 1944 article.

The Medical Mystery of the San Blas Islands

Dr. Hollenberg was an expert in the genetic causes of high blood pressure.  After reading Dr. Kean’s 1944 article, he was convinced that the Kuna Indians must have a gene that protected them from high blood pressure.

So, nearly 50 years later, Dr. Hollenberg went in search of these Kuna Indians.  He found that 50 years later, they still didn’t get high blood pressure.

However, Dr. Hollenberg’s studies showed that they didn’t get high blood pressure as long as they lived on the San Blas Islands.  If they ever moved off the islands, then their blood pressure went up. Based on this finding, he concluded that genes couldn’t be involved.

In the 1990s, the conventional medical wisdom was that if high blood pressure wasn’t due to genes, then it must be from eating too much salt or too much stress.  Surely, he thought, the Kuna Indians must either not be eating much salt or living a stress free island life.

Once again, he was wrong.

When he measured their daily salt intake, it wasn’t low.  Their stress levels also weren’t any lower on the islands.  The Kuna Indians ate just as much salt and had just as much stress in their lives as those people living on the Panama mainland.

In addition to not getting high blood pressure, Dr. Hollenberg also discovered that the Kuna Indians living on the San Blas Islands didn’t get diabetes, heart disease, or cancer either.  Their lifespan was even much longer.  In fact, his studies showed that the Kuna Indians living on the islands were 4 times less likely to get diabetes, 15 times less likely to get heart disease, and 19 times less likely to get cancer compared to those living on the Panama mainland.

The Kuna Indians

Historically, the Kuna Indians descended from the Mayans.  In order to escape Spanish domination, they migrated to these remote islands several hundred years ago.

Today, there are about 53,000 Kuna Indians inhabiting 49 of the approximately 365 San Blas Islands.  While these people are still isolated, increasingly more and more tourists are visiting their islands.

The Kuna Lifestyle

After years of research, Dr. Hollenberg ultimately concluded that it was their healthy lifestyle, combined with a big dose of chocolate, that explained why the Kuna Indians lived such long and healthy lives.

As you might expect, they didn’t have access to sugar, processed foods, or fast foods.  Rather, they only ate real food.

Each day they ate mostly vegetables with some coconut, beans, rice, wild fish, and lots of chocolate.  Yes, lots of chocolate.

From as soon as their children are weaned, they start drinking cocoa.  In fact, most Kuna on the San Blas Islands drink about 5 cups of this stuff each day.  Indeed, the Kuna Indians consume more “chocolate,” than any other group of people in the world.

I should point out that the cocoa they drink is much different than the chocolate you might find in a store. Their chocolate isn’t loaded with sugar.  It also isn’t highly processed, so the flavanol content is much higher.

The Top 3 Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate

The closer your chocolate is to what they consume on the San Blas Islands, the greater your health benefits.  Based on my review of the medical literature, here are my top 3 health benefits of dark chocolate.

1. Lowers Blood Pressure

While the Kuna Indians enjoy a remarkable 110/70 blood pressure throughout life, most chocolate eating Americans will never see such an amazing blood pressure.  Yes, chocolate, especially cocoa or dark chocolate, lowers blood pressure but not to the 110/70 level.

A review of all studies on chocolate and blood pressure shows that cocoa/dark chocolate lowers your systolic blood pressure (the top number), by about three points.  Given that the typical blood pressure medicine only lowers blood pressure by eight points, this isn’t bad.  I would much prefer a square of dark chocolate over a pill.

Even just a mild reduction in blood pressure can help to prevent heart attacks, strokes, and dementia.  Based on other studies, just a 3 point drop in blood pressure would be expected to lower your risk of heart disease by 4% and your risk of a stroke by 9%.

What else likely accounts for why the Kuna Indians don’t get high blood pressure?

Until recently, they didn’t gain weight.  Their mostly plant-based real food diet, combined with lots of physical activity, kept them lean.  Studies show that for every two pounds you lose, your blood pressure drops by one point.

As mentioned, they didn’t eat much sugar by today’s standards.  Cutting out sugar will drop your blood pressure by another 8 points.

Lastly, they were physically active throughout the day and ate a mostly plant-based real food diet.  Studies show that regular exercise lowers your blood pressure by 7 points.  Also, a mostly plant-based real food diet, will knock off another 6 points off your blood pressure.

2. Helps with Weight Loss

Several years ago, I committed that the only sweet thing I would ever eat was the darkest chocolate I could find.  This commitment has satisfied my life-long sweet tooth and has helped me to naturally get down to a healthier weight.

Indeed, studies show that dark chocolate helps with weight loss.  To get the most weight loss help from chocolate, dark chocolate should replace any other sweets you may be eating.

Ideally, your chocolate needs to be as dark as possible.  For example, in one study, researchers compared dark chocolate to milk chocolate.  Sadly, only the dark chocolate helped with weight loss.

In this study, researchers found that dark chocolate not only satisfied people’s sweet tooth but it also filled them up enough so that they ate 116 less calories each day.  Thus, based on this study, if the only treat you ever eat is dark chocolate, then you could expect to lose 12 pounds per year.

3. Live Longer

The longest lived person in the world, Jeanne Calment, claimed that chocolate helped her to live to age 122.  In fact, she even ate 2.2 pounds (1 kg) of chocolate every week.

Could there be any science behind chocolate being a longevity food?

A few years ago, Dutch researchers put this question to the test.  In this study, researchers divided 470 men into three groups, based on how much chocolate they ate, and followed them for 15 years.  Surprisingly, the men who ate the most chocolate were twice as likely to still be alive at the end of the 15 year study.

Are there any other dark chocolate health benefits?

In addition to the dark chocolate health benefits discussed (blood pressure lowering, weight loss, protection from heart disease, and a longer lifespan), dark chocolate has also been shown to have the following health benefits:

1. High in Fiber, anti-oxidants, magnesium, iron, zinc, and many other nutrients.

2. Lowers bad cholesterol and raises good cholesterol.

3. May protect your skin from sun damage.

4. May improve brain function.

What kind of chocolate should you eat?

Unfortunately, white and milk chocolate are just candy.  This is because there is too much sugar and so few flavanols.

To maximize the dark chocolate health benefits, you want it as dark as possible (minimum of 70% cacao) with the least amount of sugar and processing.  Ideally there should be no sugar.  Also, avoid alkali processing as this strips the chocolate of flavanols.

Although it is an acquired taste, if you want to eat something more similar to the Kuna Indians, then you may want to consider the much less processed cacao nibs.  Unsweetened cacao nibs are even healthier than dark chocolate.

Can you eat too much chocolate?

Certainly, the Kuna Indians and Jeanne Calment didn’t seem to suffer from too much chocolate.  When scientists studied this, they found that the more chocolate you eat, the less likely you are to suffer a heart attack.

Of course, some restraint is needed.   In this study, the highest chocolate eaters ate less than 100 grams daily (3.5 oz).

Does chocolate cause arrhythmias?

Many people, especially heart patients, worry that chocolate’s caffeine could cause an arrhythmia.  Once again, when put this to the test in 1,388 people, researchers concluded that chocolate does not cause arrhythmias.

Take Home Message

The take home message of this article is that you don’t have to move to the beautiful San Blas Islands, and eat chocolate all day, to live a long and healthy life.  Rather, you can replicate the lessons learned from the Kuna Indians and enjoy the dark chocolate health benefits in your own life.

Eating real food, which includes the darkest chocolate with minimal to no sugar and processing, can help you live a long and healthy life.  Ideally, this chocolate should replace any other sweets you may be eating.

In our home we eat the dark chocolates from Lily.  We like Lily’s dark chocolate because there is no added sugar.  It is stevia sweetened.  You can buy Lily’s dark chocolate online through Amazon or at Whole Foods.