Heart patients to test health benefits of chocolate

HEART disease patients in Britain could soon be fed dark chocolate to test whether the food has health benefits.

Laboratory experiments have already suggested that some forms of the confectionery could help stop blood clotting and prevent heart attacks.

Professor Roger Corder, head of the department of experimental therapeutics at the William Harvey Research Institute in London, wants to test dark chocolate on 40 patients with cardiovascular disease.

The scientist has applied for ethical approval to stage a formal trial in which any health benefits will be rigorously recorded.

He said it will be the first time the effect of dark chocolate on heart disease patients who are already receiving traditional treatments has been studied.

“Most of the tests have been done on people with little evidence of heart disease or healthy volunteers,” he said. “The question is whether that translates to sicker individuals - people with extensive evidence of heart disease, rather than those who are at risk.”

There is a growing body of evidence that flavonoids found in some forms of chocolate could fight heart disease, lower blood pressure and prevent strokes.

Flavonoids are natural chemicals found in fruit and vegetables, as well as red wine and tea. Chemically they are known as polyphenols.

Research has suggested that they have potent antioxidant properties and may reduce the damage of bad cholesterol, as well as possibly reducing the risk of a blood clot.

But Prof Corder warned that most chocolates do not contain high enough levels of flavonoids, and potential benefits are offset by the large sugar content.

“To say chocolate is good for you is probably a mistake, but there may be chocolates in the future that are optimised for flavonoids,” he said.

Prof Corder added: “There are only certain types of chocolate and the manufacturers need to move away from the high sugar level that most chocolate has.”