A research project that was carried out in the University of Perugia, Italy was published in the Journal of Maternal Fetal and Neonatal Medicine in April.
The goal of the project was to evaluate the effect of dark chocolate consumption on pregnant women.
The research picked up a group of ninety women aged from 18 years old to 40 years old. The woman were split into two groups. Group A received thirty grams (that is one ounce – which is about a third of a large chocolate bar or three bars of Healthy Chocolate) of 70% cocoa dark chocolate every day. Group B was the control group and did not receive the chocolate.
The result of these tests were as follows: Women in group A showed lower blood pressure than women in group B. Also women in group A showed a lower level of liver enzymes than group B. No additional weight gain was observed in the participants of group A compared to those of group B.
Both these results are very positive. The lower blood pressure indicates a healthier cardio-vascular system. The lower liver enzymes indicate that the liver is less loaded.
One may ask, but what does it mean for Healthy Chocolate? First of all, Healthy Chocolate is made of 70% dark cocoa which means that at the minimum we would have seen similar results with it. More over, each woman in group A received an extra 9 grams (1/3 of an ounce) of sugar every day. With Healthy Chocolate they would not have received it.
There is no mention in the article about the quality of the chocolate used in the research. Hence, we assume this was not an organic chocolate. Since healthy chocolate is organic it could only be better than conventional chocolate.
Overall, we think that indeed Healthy Chocolate is great for pregnant women. Much more so than the chocolate used in the research.
