Kiss off High Blood Pressure

Wouldn't it be great if you could eat something you love and it lowered your blood pressure?

How about a little bit of dark chocolate?

A new study from Germany finds a small amount of dark chocolate, the equivalent of one Hershey kiss a day could be the sweet treat that helps keep your blood pressure in check.
Granted it was a small study, only 44 people who had mild high blood pressure (hypertension) or borderline blood pressure that fell just short of hypertension. They were otherwise healthy and weren't taking blood pressure drugs or nutritional supplements.
For 18 weeks half the group ate the dark chocolate morsel, the other half ate white chocolate. The rules: take your chocolate dose two hours after dinner, don't change your normal diet and fitness habits and keep a diet and exercise diary.
On average, when the study wrapped up those eating dark chocolate lowered their systolic blood pressure ( the top number) by nearly three points and their diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number)by almost two points.
There was no change for the folks eating the white chocolate.
This is in line with earlier studies - but the first to show an effect with such a small amount of dark chocolate. While it's not clear WHY it works, the flavanols in cocoa may play a role.
So, one 'KISS' a day may keep the doctor away .. but indulge too much and you've got other problems. (the study is published in the current issue of JAMA (The Journal of the American Medical Association)