Pregnant? Chocolate may prevent complications.
By admin | May 12, 2008
Written by Michael Vass
Here is something sure to bring joy to millions of pregnant women across the world, though I’m sure some super fitness freaks will be against it. Research out today has been done that suggests that chocolate is good for pregnant women. Yes chocolate.
Now this doesn’t mean that every pregnant woman out there should have their man run to the local store and buy out all the candy bars, though I’m sure more than a few will have cravings for such. But if a woman consumes at least 5 servings of chocolate a week, especially dark chocolate, during her 3rd trimester then her odds of getting preeclampsia is 40% less than women that didn’t consume chocolate.
Now this is not perfect data. The research has only been done based on 2,291 women in Sri Lanka. Results in the rest of the world have yet to be investigated, and the study so far is quite small. But every little bit of good is great.
Of course there are other benefits to chocolate besides it’s potential reduction in preeclampsia cases. It has been found to stimulate the heart, relax smooth muscle and dilate blood vessels. All of these things are positives in and of themselves. There is no question that these effects are positive in most pregnant women. And for the fathers (and everyone else) there is the good news that chocolate, especially dark chocolate has been used to treat chest pain, high blood pressure, and hardening of the arteries.
All that and it works great on a sweet tooth too. Ok, so now all the guys can make that run to the local store.
Topics: Uncategorized | No Comments »