Eating THIS Type Of Chocolate Lowers Your Stroke Risk By 22%

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We all love chocolate! I’m confident about that claim. Americans eat about 2.8 billion pounds of chocolate each year. That’s about 11 pounds per person. But did you know that chocolate has some fantastic health benefits? And did you also know that that statement may have a little more nuance than you would expect at first?

In this blog, I dive into the chocolate research. I find out if chocolate actually lowers your stroke risk. If it does, I’ll see how much eating this treat helps your heart and blood vessels!

Problems With Chocolate Research

Before I get into the details, you need to know that not all chocolate research is equal. That’s because the chocolate industry is gigantic. In turn, this means there’s a lot of money at play.

Major corporations (looking at you Hershey!) are known for funding many scientific studies around chocolate. Surprisingly, they always end up in their favor. So, I looked at the science on the topic. I tried to avoid research funded by the chocolate industry.

Is Chocolate Really That Good For You?

Yes! and no. Let me explain.

Chocolate, as we all know, consists of many different ingredients. However, the main ones are cocoa, sugar, and (if you’re not plant-based) milk. Two of these cause health problems. Only one has health benefits related to stroke risk: cocoa.

Cocoa has flavonoids and a lot of them. Those are very powerful antioxidants and they do a lot of great things. For example, they reduce inflammation. They also fight cancer cells, viruses, and bacteria. However, we’re here to focus on stroke risk so how do flavonoids improve that?

Flavonoids improve heart health. They do this by improving blood vessel function. They also reduce blood pressure and improve blood flow. They also help prevent the oxidation of LDL cholesterol. This oxidation is a key factor in hardening blood vessels.

For these reasons, it’s not the chocolate bar that’s lowering stroke risk. It’s the cocoa in it. In fact, dark chocolate with 80% cocoa has three times more antioxidants than milk chocolate. You can see this in the image below.

How Much Does Cocoa Decrease Your Stroke Risk?

We now know that cocoa is great for your blood vessels and heart. But, how much does eating cocoa cut your risk of vessel problems and strokes?

Many studies cover this topic. But, I found one where the Swedes took a huge group of people (44,489 participants to be exact). They compared their chocolate eating to their stroke risk. Also, I checked. The study was funded only by the Swedish government and some Swedish health groups. No corporate money was involved.

They found that people who ate one serving of chocolate per week had a 22% lower stroke risk. This was compared to people who did not eat chocolate at all (source). Another study, which followed 1,169 people, found that people who ate 50 grams of chocolate weekly had a 46%(!) lower stroke risk than their counterparts who didn’t eat chocolate (source).

Don’t Forget These Facts As Well

Now, those are some impressive results! But there are things you should actively keep in mind if you want to reap the health benefits of chocolate consumption.

First, if you’re going to eat chocolate, pick the variant with the highest amount of cocoa. You’re robbing yourself of potential health benefits if you’re eating the 10-20% cocoa versions.

Even better: mix raw cocoa into your oatmeal or with soymilk to create a healthy breakfast or shake. Personally, I do both of these things every day. It makes the meals taste better and provides health benefits.

Also, know that milk fights the health benefits of cocoa. I know most of us are plant-based, but it’s still worth mentioning. Researchers compared dark chocolate (red line) and milk chocolate (grey line). They also tested dark chocolate with a glass of milk (blue line). They wanted to see how these things would affect anti-oxidant blood levels.

As you can see, dark chocolate has the biggest increase in antioxidant blood levels. Milk chocolate has few benefits. A glass of milk heavily suppressed the benefits of dark chocolate.

Stefan K.

Stefan has been vegan since 2019 and has been regularly working on his strength since the beginning of 2023. He’s on a mission to help other vegans get stronger and have all of them achieve the quality of life they deserve.