Health

5 Reasons You Should EAT Chocolate!

By Fatema J

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#1 WEIGHT LOSS

YES. Chocolate helps, not adds weight, but keep in mind we’re talking about dark chocolate – throw away that milk chocolate and develop a taste for the dark one… because it’s LOADED with benefits! Researchers at University of Copenhagen founded that it helps you feel filled up, making you not need or crave bigger portions otherwise, allowing you to stick to your low calorie diet in general otherwise!

#2 DESTRESS

Yes, we all love unwrapping that beautiful slab of chocolate when upset, depressed or stressed, don’t we? Well, apart from the increase in your weight, it’s not really the worst thing in the world because research from Switzerland has found that when anxious people chugged down about an ounce of dark chocolate everyday for two weeks, their stress hormone levels were lower!

#3 WORK SMART

So chocolate does help kill the stress, but did you know that it’ll also give your brain that added energy it needs sometimes? Dark chocolate has been found to boost blood flow to key parts of the brain for up to 2 to 3 hours, improving short term performance!

Study: University of Nottingham research

#4 CALM YOUR COUGHS

Chocolate supposedly has theobromine, the chemical which gives off that good feeling effect, and it suppresses activity in a part of the brain called the vagus nerve – relevant to calming down coughs! Of course, cough syrups don’t get any better than this.

#5 FIGHT DIABETES

The most unexpected one of all I saved for the last. You’d think that chocolate is the root cause of all bad things called diabetes.. but nah, it actually HELPS! In a small Italian study where people ate dark chocolate everyday for two weeks, their potential for insulin resistance dropped by half!

Source: University of L’Aquila in Italy