Two choc bars a day keeps doctor away

It's not all bad news for chocolate lovers. Photo / Thinkstock

It is the ultimate comfort food and is known to produce the same chemical in the brain as falling in love, but now scientists have shown that eating up to two bars of chocolate a day appears to protect against heart disease and stroke.

Previously chocolate has been shown to reduce memory loss, prevent diabetes, reduce stress, protect the skin against sun damage and lower cholesterol.

To find out if it was beneficial for the heart, researchers at the University of Aberdeen looked at the snacking habits of 21,000 people over 12 years.

They found that eating up to 100g of chocolate daily lowered the risk of dying from heart disease during that time by 25 per cent. The chance of a stroke also fell by 23 per cent.

Phyo Myint, professor of old age medicine at the Scottish university, said: "Cumulative evidence suggests that higher chocolate intake is associated with a lower risk of future cardiovascular events."

The researchers also reviewed the available published evidence on the links between chocolate and cardiovascular disease, involving almost 158,000 people.

In each of the relevant studies they found a significantly lower risk of stroke and heart disease associated with regular chocolate consumption.

The research was published in the BMJ journal Heart.

Rod Emmerson