Sweet news: Chocolate reduces blood pressure, risk for heart disease

Eating chocolate appears to lower the risk for cardiovascular disease by reducing blood pressure, German researchers have found. They're talking about a "moderate" consumption that replaces other high-density snacks in your diet.

The researchers analyzed diet and health habits for 19,357 people, from age 35 to 65, over 10 years. Those who ate the most chocolate (7.5 grams, or 0.3 ounces, per day) had lower blood pressure and were 39 percent less likely to suffer a heart attack than those who ate the least amount of chocolate (1.7 grams or .06 ounces, per day.)

"To put that in terms of absolute risk, if people in the group eating the least amount of chocolate increased their chocolate intake by 6 grams a day, 85 fewer heart attacks and strokes per 10,000 people could be expected to occur over a period of about 10 years," study leader Dr. Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition, said in a news release from the European Heart Journal.

What gives chocolate its blood pressure-lowering powers?

Apparently, the high flavanol content of cocoa. Flavanols are a type of antioxidant, and chocolates with a higher percentage of cocoa, such as dark chocolate, contain more flavanols. Fruits and vegetables also contain flavanols.

"Flavanols appear to be the substances in cocoa that are responsible for improving the bioavailability of nitric oxide from the cells that line the inner wall of blood vessels," Buijsse told WebMD. "Nitric oxide is a gas that, once released, causes the smooth muscle cells of the blood vessels to relax and widen; this may contribute to lower blood pressure. Nitric oxide also improves platelet function, making the blood less sticky."

Read the HealthDay report.

Read the WebMD report.

Read the abstract in the European Heart Journal.

The cardiac benefits of banning salt

Restaurants throughout New York State would be forbidden to use salt in the preparation of food if New York Assemblyman Felix Ortiz has his way. He introduced a bill Tuesday, citing a World Health Organization report that says at least three-quarters of the sodium Americans consume comes from restaurant foods.

"Studies have also proven that lowering the amount of salt people eat, even by small amounts, could reduce cases of heart disease, stroke, and heart attacks as much as reductions in smoking, obesity, and cholesterol levels," Ortiz told Nation's Restaurant News.

That's true. (Check out the recent Time magazine story on that subject.) But civil libertarians might quibble with whether that means we should be creating laws that prevent restaurants from cooking with salt.

Aside from the health benefits of lower salt intake, a study in this month's Annals of Internal Medicine says reducing dietary sodium levels would save $32 billion in medical costs and avert almost one million heart attacks and strokes over the lifetime of adults ages 45 to 85.

In the study, researchers considered two approaches for reducing a population's sodium intake--governments getting food manufacturers to voluntarily reduce salt in processed foods, and governments placing a sodium tax on food, reports HeartWire. Though they projected financial savings and health improvements, researchers admitted that "efforts to reduce population sodium intake could result in other dietary changes that are difficult to predict."

We Americans like our salt, after all-- and generally ingest way more than we need. It's not that way everywhere. Check out that World Health Organization report that Ortiz referenced and you'll read how some cultures grapple with iodine deficiency from too little sodium.

Meanwhile: Some advice for cooking flavorfully with less salt.

Processed meats are tied to higher rates of heart disease and diabetes

Combing through 20 relevant studies, involving 1.2 million adults in 10 countries, researchers discovered that unprocessed red meat isn't so bad for our hearts. It's processed meats that are actually linked to a higher incidence of coronary heart disease and diabetes.

"To lower risk of heart attacks and diabetes, people should avoid eating too much processed meats -- for example, hot dogs, bacon, sausage or processed deli meats," lead researcher Renata Micha, a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, told the Palm Beach Post. "Based on our findings, eating up to one serving per week would be associated with relatively small risk."

Researchers found that:

• higher consumption of unprocessed red meat was not significantly associated with risk of either coronary heart disease or diabetes.

• higher consumption of processed meat was associated with risk: each daily 50-gram serving was associated with 42 percent higher risk of coronary heart disease and 19 percent higher risk of diabetes.

Unprocessed red meat included beef, hamburgers, lamb or pork.

Processed meat was any meat preserved by smoking, curing or salting, or with the addition of chemical preservatives, including bacon, salami, sausages, hot dogs, or processed deli or luncheon meats.

The processed meats contained, on average, four times higher sodium and 50 percent higher levels of nitrate/nitrite preservatives than unprocessed red meats. In contrast, saturated fat levels were similar and cholesterol levels were higher in unprocessed red meats versus processed meats. Researchers said this suggests that salt and other preservatives, rather than fats, could account for the higher risk seen with processed meats.

Their work was presented this week at an American Heart Association conference in San Francisco.

Study: People with heart problems don't need to abstain from coffee

Coffee drinkers sometimes report palpitations, but new research from the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, Calif. says coffee drinkers may actually be less likely to be hospitalized for heart rhythm disturbances.

Ingesting very large doses of caffeine, coffee's most active ingredient, has been shown to create rhythm disturbances. But Kaiser researchers followed 130,054 men and women and found that those who drank four or more cups of coffee each day had an 18 percent lower risk of hospitalization for heart rhythm disturbances. The study does not prove cause and effect. People who drink four or more cups of coffee may have other protective traits. Or, they could have heart problems for which they're not hospitalized.

Dr. Arthur Klatsky says his work isn't suggesting that people drink coffee to prevent rhythm problems, but it does support the idea that people who are at risk for rhythm problems, or who have rhythm problems, do not necessarily need to abstain from coffee.

The story from WedMD.

The news release from Kaiser.

The synopsis from the 50th annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.