Chocolate Can Help You Lose Weight!

Amid various studies being conducted on the health benefits of chocolate that inspire you to munch another one, a new research reveals that a key ingredient in chocolate might help lose weight and lower type-2 diabetes risk. The researchers from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University added the flavanol named oligomeric procyanidins (PCs) found in cocoa - the basic ingredient of chocolate - in the food for mice. They found that it made a huge difference in keeping the mice's weight down if they were on high-fat diets. This compound also improved glucose tolerance which could potentially help prevent type-2 diabetes. People know that cocoa has the potential to boost heart health, lower blood sugar and decrease body fat. "Now we know that a particular flavanol can also help you fight obesity and type-2 diabetes," said lead author Andrew P. Neilson. The scientists fed groups of mice different diets, including high-fat and low-fat diets, and high-fat diets supplemented with different kinds of flavanols. "Oligomeric PCs appear to possess the greatest anti-obesity and anti-diabetic bioactivities of the flavanols in cocoa, particularly at the low doses employed for the present study," the researchers noted. The study was appeared in the Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry.