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March 26th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda MONDAY, March 26 (HealthDay News) — Here’s a sweet surprise for
chocoholics: A new study finds that people who eat chocolate regularly are
somewhat skinnier than folks who don’t indulge their sweet tooth.
The findings don’t prove that chowing down on chocolate will melt off
your excess pounds. It’s possible that another factor is responsible for
the modest difference in body mass, or it might be a statistical
fluke.
But for now, study lead author Dr. Beatrice Golomb said the findings
“reduce any possible guilt that might come with chocolate consumption.”
Golomb, an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego,
said she hopes to better understand what’s going on through future
research.
As foods go, chocolate is a hard one to figure out. It includes
antioxidants, substances that counteract damaging agents in the body. And
consumption of chocolate has been linked in other studies to a variety of
positive health effects from lower blood pressure to better cholesterol
levels. On the other hand, chocolate can come with plenty of calories and
fat.
In the new study, Golomb and colleagues reviewed food questionnaires
filled out by nearly 1,000 people who were asked how often they ate
chocolate. Their average age was 57, and 68 percent were men.
The researchers then tried to find any connections between chocolate
consumption and the body mass index (BMI) of the participants. BMI is a
calculation based on height and weight that is used to determine
underweight, overweight and obesity in adults.
Participants’ average BMI was 28 — overweight but not obese. On
average, they ate chocolate twice a week and exercised between three and
four times a week.
The study found that those who ate chocolate the most often had lower
BMIs than the others, even when the researchers adjusted their statistics
so they wouldn’t be thrown off by factors such as age, gender, education
and fruit and vegetable consumption.
For the typical person, the difference between frequently eating or
infrequently eating chocolate could account for a 5- to 7-pound
difference, Golomb said.
The findings “certainly weren’t explained by the chocolate eaters
eating fewer calories. They ate more calories and didn’t exercise any
more,” she said.
It’s not clear, however, what kinds of chocolate the participants ate,
although most would probably have interpreted the question as asking about
candy, Golomb said. Milk chocolate is fattier than dark chocolate.
Golomb cautioned that the study does not say that chocolate consumption
will help people lose weight.
“It is not a siren call to go out and eat 20 pounds of chocolate a
day,” she said.
However, the study suggests that diet composition may influence the
body’s metabolic processes, and therefore BMI, she said.
So why would chocolate fanciers be thinner than others? Dr. Daniela
Jakubowicz, a professor at Tel Aviv University in Israel who has studied
chocolate, said previous research has shown that diets that force people
to avoid sweets actually make them more drawn to them. In her own
research, she found that people were actually better able to tolerate a
diet when they ate chocolate.
Golomb said that, ideally, future research will randomly assign some
people to eat chocolate and others to avoid it. But that may be a
challenge, especially if some participants refuse to go without it.
“We have a few pesky details to iron out,” she said.
The study, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, was
published online March 26 in Archives of Internal Medicine.
More information
For more about nutrition, visit the U.S. National Library of
Medicine.
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