Dark Chocolate May Improve Walking in Patients with PAD
Dark chocolate may help patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) to walk a little easier, according to a recent study that appeared online in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
“We observed in patients with peripheral arterial disease that dark chocolate improved blood flow and walking autonomy—they walked an average 11% farther,” says study co-author Lorenzo Loffredo, MD, of the Sapienza University of Rome in Italy. “Conversely, we did not observe effects on blood flow and on walking autonomy in PAD patients after milk chocolate consumption.”
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The difference, he believes, is in the polyphenols—a compound found in cocoa that the authors suggest may reduce oxidative stress and improve blood flow in the peripheral arteries.
With a cocoa content of more than 85%, the dark chocolate used in the study was rich in polyphenols. In contrast, the milk chocolate had a cocoa content of less than 30% and a low concentration of polyphenols.
In the small single-blind, crossover study, Loffredo and colleagues examined 20 patients, ages 60-78, with PAD who had symptoms of intermittent claudication. They randomized the 14 men and 6 women to receive either 40g of dark chocolate or 40g of milk chocolate.
“We demonstrated that only dark chocolate was able to reduce the activity of NADPH oxidase, an enzyme that plays a pivotal role in human artery dilation and oxidative stress production,” Loffredo says.
Dark chocolate was also associated with some modest improvements in walking autonomy—with these patients showing an 11% increase in maximal walking distance and a 15% increase in maximal walking time.
“In the context of atherosclerosis, following an appropriate diet is crucial for reducing the burden of vascular disease,” Loffredo says. “The present study corroborates this concept as consumption of polyphenol-rich nutrients resulted in improving blood flow in the peripheral circulation.”
While Loffredo and his team find the results promising, they emphasize that more research is needed to confirm these findings.
“People should be aware that we still need the results of a prospective study before suggesting the consumption of dark chocolate to improve claudication,” Loffredo says. “We need not only to increase the sample size, but overall we need to assess if long-term administration of dark chocolate results in ameliorating claudication.”
—Colleen Mullarkey
Reference
Loffredo L, Perri L, Catasca E, Pignatelli P, Brancorsini M, Nocella C, De Falco E, et al.
Dark chocolate acutely improves walking autonomy in patients with peripheral artery disease. J Am Heart Assoc. 2014 Jul 2;3(4). pii: e001072.