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Archive for the ‘Healthy foods’ Category

Apparently, the longing to eat chocolate, above all, in situations of stress, could be justified, after all: according to a recent research, eating dark chocolate can reduce stress hormones, in people who feel stress.
According to a study by a group of scientists Swiss and German, was discovered that consume a chocolate bar bitter per day (1.4 ounces) for two weeks, reduces levels of cortical, and linked to the stress.
Recently there have been some findings regarding the potential benefit to the health that has the dark chocolate, for example, has been determined that the cocoa has a high content of a class of antioxidants called flavonoids, which have been linked to a series of health benefits.
It also is investigating other compounds in the dark chocolate that can offer health benefits, such as improving the sensitivity to insulin, reduce blood pressure and improves the mood.
For the study, were measured the effects of the ingestion of 40 grams of dark chocolate daily for two weeks. Used 30 volunteers’ healthy adults. Half of chocolate (20 grams) was eaten by mid-morning and the other half (20 grams), mid-afternoon. During the two weeks that lasted the study, it took samples of blood and urine tests to measure the levels of stress hormones.
The levels of anxiety of the participants were determined to the top of the study, and were collected samples of urine and blood for analysis, to the top and bottom of the study.
The results showed that eating dark chocolate every day reduced levels of stress hormone in the subject that had high levels of anxiety. It was also concluded that the dark chocolate seems to have beneficial effects on the metabolism of the participants and the microbial activity in the intestine. Read the rest of this entry »