Chocolate lovers rejoice - it lowers the blood pressure!

Chocolate lovers have a good reason to rejoice - new research says dark chocolate helps to keep the blood pressure down.

In a study by researchers at the University Hospital of Cologne, Germany, it has been found that a small piece of dark chocolate, as little as 6.8 grammes or a quarter of an ounce a day, can lower blood pressure without weight gain or other negative side effects.

This is not the first research to find that foods rich in cocoa such as dark chocolate offer health benefits, but there has always been concern that the added sugar, fat and calories would negate any good the chocolate might do.

According to Dr. Dirk Taubert, the study leader regular intake of small amounts of dark chocolate can help to lower blood pressure.

Dark chocolate is rich in polyphenols which are thought to offer considerable health benefits.

For the study Dr. Taubert and colleagues studied 44 adults aged 56 to 73 with hypertension but no other health problems, over a one year period from January 2005 to December 2006.

The study participants were randomly selected to receive a single, 30-calorie square of dark chocolate containing 30 mg of polyphenols or a 30-calorie square of white chocolate that had no polyphenols.

The researchers found after 18 weeks, the dark chocolate group experienced a 3 point drop in systolic blood pressure, the top reading, and a 2 point drop in diastolic blood pressure, the bottom reading, without changes in body weight, cholesterol or blood sugar.

The researchers say that although initially the reduction may appear to be low, on a population basis, it means if everyone experienced such a blood pressure reduction, the risk of cardiovascular death would be reduced by about 5 percent.

Taubert says chocolate may be helpful for reducing blood pressure and therefore, the risk of heart attack and stroke, and adding small amounts of flavanol-rich cocoa into the daily diet is a dietary modification that is easy to stick to.

The researchers used the cheapest chocolate for the study which contained 50 percent cocoa, but he said a dark chocolate with 40 to 60 percent cocoa content would be as good.

Dr. Taubert does however caution people to regard dark chocolate as an addition to other lifestyle changes such as more exercise or eating more fruit and vegetables and less fat and sugar intake.

According to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute more than 65 million U.S. adults, about one in three, have high blood pressure above levels of 140/90, while another 59 million have pre-hypertension, blood pressure of 120/80 or above.