Moderate chocolate intake, less heart failure

[Guest guest]

The below free full-text paper, introduced by a website description evidences the moderate chocolate intake heart failure protection.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817161110.htm

Journal Reference:

1. Chocolate Intake and Incidence of Heart Failure: A Population-Based, Prospective Study of Middle-Aged and Elderly Women.Mostofsky E, Levitan EB, Wolk A, Mittleman MA.Circ Heart Fail. 2010 Aug 16. [Epub ahead of print]PMID: 20713904 http://circheartfailure.ahajournals.org/cgi/rapidpdf/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.110.944025v1.pdf

Abstract

BACKGROUND: -Randomized clinical trials have shown that chocolate intake reduces systolic and diastolic blood pressure and observational studies have found an inverse association between chocolate intake and cardiovascular disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between chocolate intake and incidence of heart failure (HF).

METHODS AND RESULTS: -We conducted a prospective cohort study of 31,823 women 48-83 years old without baseline diabetes or a history of HF or myocardial infarction who were participants in the Swedish Mammography Cohort. In addition to health and lifestyle questions, participants completed a food-frequency questionnaire. Women were followed from January 1, 1998 through December 31, 2006 for HF hospitalization or death through the Swedish inpatient and cause-of-death registers. Over 9 years of follow-up, 419 women were hospitalized for incident HF (n =379) or died of HF (n = 40). Compared to no regular chocolate intake, the multivariate-adjusted rate ratio of HF was 0.74 (95%CI 0.58-0.95) for those consuming 1-3 servings of chocolate per month, 0.68 (95%CI 0.50-0.93) for those consuming 1-2 servings per week, 1.09 (95%CI .74-1.62) for those consuming 3-6 servings per week and 1.23 (95%CI 0.73-2.08) for those consuming one or more servings per day (p

for quadratic trend = 0.0005).

CONCLUSIONS: -In this population, moderate habitual chocolate intake was associated with a lower rate of HF hospitalization or death but the protective association was not observed with intake of one or more servings per day. -- Aalt Pater