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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

CHOCOLATE CONSUMPTION MAY BE LINKED TO REDUCED RISK OF HEART DISEASE, STROKE

ABC World News (8/29, story 10, 0:30, Sawyer) reported that "chocolate may be a kind of secret weapon against heart disease."

Bloomberg News (8/30, Torsoli) reports that "regular consumption" of chocolate "may slash the risk of developing heart disease by a third, according to research published in the British Medical Journal and presented...at the European Society of Cardiology's conference in Paris."

The Los Angeles Times (8/30, Stein) "Booster Shots" blog reports that investigators analyzed data from "seven studies looking at the link between eating chocolate and a reduction in heart disease that included 114,009 people."

The Time (8/30, Melnick) "Healthland" blog reports, "Five of the seven studies showed some benefit to eating chocolate. Overall, people with the highest chocolate consumption levels had 37% lower risk of heart disease and a 29% lower risk of stroke than those who ate the least chocolate."

The CNN (8/30) "The Chart" blog points out that "the studies, notably, did not differentiate between dark or milk chocolate and included consumption of different types of chocolate (bars, shakes, etc.)."

MedPage Today (8/30, Neale) reports that one of the researchers "noted that most commercially available chocolate products are high in fat, sugar, and calories, and that overindulging could counteract any of the potential benefits, a sentiment echoed by Janet Wright, MD, vice president of science and quality for the American College of Cardiology." In an interview, Dr Wright said, "We tend to take a little bit of advice and think that more is better," but "in this case, more is probably not better because of the fat content and the calorie content."

Also covering the story were the UK's Telegraph (8/30, Adams), BBC News (8/30), the NPR (8/30, Shute) "Shots" blog, the Grand Rapids Press (8/30, Thoms), WebMD (8/30, Laino), HealthDay (8/30, Reinberg), HeartWire (8/30, O'Riordan).

POSTED BY STEVEN ALMANY, MD

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