One more year, and I will be able to eat all the chocolate I want without ANY guilt - for now, at 71, I am in the home straight. "Regular intake of chocolate." That certainly sounds good. Now, I wonder who commissioned this study ... for once, I don't think I care!
"Cerebral blood flow response to flavanol-rich cocoa in healthy elderly humans," Sorond FA, Lipsitz LA, et al, Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment, 2008; 4(2): 433-440. (Address: Farzaneh A. Sorond, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Neurology, Stroke Division, 45 Francis Street, Boston, MA, 02115, USA. E-mail: fsorond@partners.org ).
| Summary: | In a study involving 34 healthy elderly subjects (mean age: 72 years), regular intake of flavanol-rich cocoa (FRC) was found to increase mean blood flow velocity in the cerebral artery by 8% after 1 week and by 10% after 2 weeks, as compared to subjects consuming flavanol-poor cocoa. Furthermore, after one week, significantly more subjects consuming the flavanol-rich cocoa experienced improvements in cerebral blood flow velocity, as compared to those consuming the flavanol-poor cocoa. These results suggest that consumption of cocoa rich in flavanols may have a role to play in "the treatment of cerebrovascular ischemic syndromes, including dementias and stroke." Additional research is warranted |
