Facts
Cocoa Boosts Blood Circulation In Legs And Helps Keep Over 60s On Their Feet, Study Reveals
Hot chocolate per day could keep the doctor away!
The intake of hot chocolate can help in achieving an over 60s stay on feet as well as boost blood circulation in legs, a study revealed.
Individuals who drank a mug of a coffee three times a day for an estimated 6months study were discovered being able to walk significantly further in a walking test.
With cocoa being abundant in a compound named ‘Epicatechin, and equally found in dark chocolate, researchers believe its epicatechin content help improve blood flow to the human calves, in turn permitting them to go the extra distance.
Carried out on people with common peripheral artery disease ‘PAD’, a 5th of individuals over 60 in the United Kingdom experience pain, cramping and tightness in leg muscles when walking.
The intake of hot chocolate can help in achieving an over 60s stay on feet as well as boost blood circulation in legs
Speaking on the results, Professor Mary McDermott, the author of the study from Northwestern University in Chicago, US explained: ‘Few therapies exist for improving walking performance in individuals with PAD.’
Chair of the American Heart Association’s Peripheral Vascular Council, Dr. Naomi Hamburg added: ‘People with PAD face challenges in walking. It’s as bad as individuals with advanced heart failure. The leg muscles hardly get adequate blood supply in PAD leading to injury. In this study, cocoa has proven to be a protector of the muscle as well as a good substance for metabolism.’
Dr. Hamburg continued: ‘We understand that exercise therapy assists people with PAD to walk further and interestingly this study opines that cocoa might be the new means of treating people diagnosed with PAD.’
‘We will be needing larger findings to determine if cocoa is an effective treatment for PAD and perhaps someday we will be able to write a chocolate prescription for patients with PAD.’
Involving 44 PAD Patients aged 60, participants were randomly picked to drink either a cup of cocoa or a placebo powder packet three times for six months. Specifically, the cocoa was unsweetened and largely contained 75grams of epicatechin and 15grams of cocoa.
