Jury still out on chocolate’s heart health benefits

Victoria Taylor, BHF senior heart health dietician, said: “Evidence does suggest chocolate might have some heart health benefits but we need to find out why that might be.”​

Her comments followed research published in the British Medical Journal​ analysing the results of seven previous studies involving 100,000 people.

The findings showed a high level of chocolate consumption was associated with a 33% reduction in a person’s risk of developing heart and circulatory disease.

Lots of chocolate​

Taylor said: “We can’t start advising people to eat lots of chocolate based on this research. It didn’t explore what it is about chocolate that could help and if one particular type of chocolate is better than another. ​

“If you want to reduce your heart disease risk, there are much better places to start than at the bottom of a box of chocolates.”​

Chocolate should be eaten as part of a balanced diet but moderation because the sweet is usually packed with saturated fat and calories, she added.

Meanwhile, studies published in the Lancet ​suggest UK obesity figures could rise to 26m by 2030, causing an estimated 461,000 extra people to develop heart disease.

The research estimates that 15m people are already obese in the UK and that figuee could soar by 11m over the next two decades.

The researchers estimate that will force spending on obesity-related health problems to rise by 25 per cent each year, costing the National Health Service an extra £2bn a year.