Abstract

This article sounds too good to be true; if you eat dark chocolate, your blood pressure goes down. The study recruited 119 individuals in Germany, and studied 44 of them. The study utilized a very small group of individuals, probably healthier than our average adult patients, who ate chocolate for 18 weeks and benefitted from a brief reduction of their blood pressure (after 18 weeks). For those patients willing to follow an appropriate diet, lose weight if their BMI is over 25, stop smoking, treat their lipids (almost always with drugs unless they are vegans), and exercise at least 30 minutes five times a week, the chocolate blood pressure treatment may be useful.