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Why Chocolate is Practically a Health Food
The health benefits of epicatechin, a compound found in cocoa, are so striking that it may rival penicillin in importance to public health, new research suggests.
In fact, researchers from Harvard Medical School say that epicatechin is so important that it should be considered a vitamin.
Professor Norman Hollenberg has spent years studying the benefits of cocoa drinking on the Kuna people in Panama. He found that the risk of 4 of the 5 most common killer diseases: stroke, heart failure, cancer and diabetes, is reduced to less than 10% in the Kuna, who drink up to 40 cups of cocoa a week. Natural cocoa has high levels of epicatechin.
“If these observations predict the future, then we can say without blushing that they are among the most important observations in the history of medicine,” said Hollenberg. “We all agree that penicillin and anaesthesia are enormously important. But epicatechin could potentially get rid of 4 of the 5 most common diseases in the western world.”
Nutrition expert Daniel Fabricant says that Hollenberg’s results are so impressive that they may even warrant a rethink of how vitamins are defined. Currently, vitamins are classified as essential to the normal functioning, metabolism, regulation and growth of cells and deficiency is usually linked to disease. Epicatechin does not meet the criteria.
At the moment, the science does not support epicatechin having an essential role. But that may change. “The link between high epicatechin consumption and a decreased risk of killer disease is so striking, it should be investigated further,” said Fabricant, who is vice president of scientific affairs at the Natural Products Association. “It may be that these diseases are the result of epicatechin deficiency,” he added.
Currently, there are only 13 essential vitamins. An increase in the number of vitamins would provide significant opportunity for nutritional companies to expand their range of products. Flavanols like epicatechin are removed from commercial cocoas because they tend to have a bitter taste. So there is huge scope for nutritional companies to develop epicatechin supplements or capsules.
Epicatechin is also found in teas, wine, chocolate and some fruit and vegetables.
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