Is chocolate good for your heart health and your skin?
Valentine’s Day is just days away, love is in the air, and chocolate is a staple. Chocolate hearts, chocolate roses – whatever you can think of, there is a chocolate version of it. But is it harmful or healthy for our heart and our skin? Does the type of chocolate matter? Baylor College of Medicine physicians explain.
“Chocolate does have cardiovascular benefits, but there are caveats,” said Dr. Mahboob Alam, cardiologist at Baylor College of Medicine. “Dark chocolate with more than 70% cacao content is associated with cardiovascular benefits not seen with milk chocolate and certainly not with white chocolate.”
He adds that there are about 150 to 170 calories in an ounce of dark chocolate. Consuming a moderate amount (about 1 ounce of it once or twice a week) is best. Milk chocolate has fewer cardiovascular benefits. It’s also a high-calorie snack.
“A chemical ingredient in dark chocolate called flavanols is vasoactive, causing vasodilation, or the widening of blood vessels. When a person’s arteries dilate because of flavanols, their blood pressure goes down, which can reduce the risk of long-term high blood pressure-related events like heart attacks, strokes and renal disease,” Alam said.
Alam says that flavanols also can reduce insulin resistance. People who are pre-diabetic or have early diabetes may enhance their insulin function and reduce adverse outcomes with dark chocolate.
The antioxidants in dark chocolate can also improve a person’s endothelial function and reduce endothelial dysfunction, which is associated with cardiovascular disease and an increased risk of coronary artery disease.
When it comes to your skin, dermatologist Dr. Oyetewa Asempa says how harmful chocolate can be depends on the type and how much you eat.
“Milk chocolate or chocolate candy bars contain a large amount of added sugar, refined fats and dairy,” said Asempa, director of the Skin of Color Clinic at Baylor. “There is data that shows foods with a high glycemic index (a lot of sugar) and foods with whey protein, found in certain dairy products, have been associated with acne flares in some people.”
To be clear, she says that chocolate, sugar and/or dairy do not cause acne, but can cause acne flares in an acne-prone individual. Some studies show that even dark chocolate can lead to the worsening of acne flares.
“The higher cocoa content in dark chocolate also means greater potential for acne exacerbation in susceptible individuals,” Asempa said.
While data isn’t fully there to prove if dark chocolate is better for your skin than milk chocolate, Asempa says that due to the high flavanol content in it, it might provide antioxidant effects and protect against UV-induced oxidative damage.
By Taylor Barnes
