Healthy people who exercise and also eat chocolate regularly tend to have a lower body mass index than those who eat the rich brown sweets less often, a US study suggested on Monday. The survey of a population of more than 1,000 adults, published as a research letter in the Archives on Internal Medicine, reinforces the notion that chocolate packs heart healthy benefits, despite its high calorie and sugar content.
People in the study reported eating chocolate an average of twice a week and exercising an average of 3.6 times a week. Their average age was 57. Those who said they ate chocolate more often than the norm tended to have a lower ratio of weight over height, a calculation made by taking a person’s weight and dividing it by their height times two. A normal BMI is typically 18.5 to 24.9, while people who figure lower are considered underweight and those above 25 are overweight.
“Adults who consumed chocolate more frequently had a lower BMI than those who consumed chocolate less often,” said the study led by Beatrice Golomb and colleagues at the University of California San Diego.
“Our findings are intriguing,” it added, calling for more detailed research and perhaps a randomised clinical trial of chocolate’s metabolic benefits. “Before you start eating a chocolate bar a day to keep the doctor away, remember that a chocolate bar can contain over 200 calories which mostly come from saturated fats and sugar,” said Nancy Copperman, director of Public Health Initiatives at the North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in New York.