Eat chocolate and cut your risk of heart disease?

An interesting article surfaced today on cnn.com regarding scientists in the UK looking for 150 women willing to eat chocolate for a year as part of a study. Don’t worry, it’s not a “Supersize me II”, the women aren’t expected to eat only chocolate for a year; it will be introduced into their diet.

The goal of the trial at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, eastern England is to test whether a natural compound found in cocoa could cut the risk of heart disease among women with diabetes.

The chocolate used in the study is a special type of chocolate :

A Belgian confectionist has created the special chocolate bar containing high levels of flavonoids — a plant compound that has been shown to reduce heart risk factors — to be used in the experiment. Soy, another natural source of flavonoids, has also been added to the bar.

And the hypothesis behind that study is:

“The hypothesis of this exciting study is that flavonoids may improve the level of protection against heart disease over and above that provided by conventional drugs,” said Dr. Ketan Dhatariya, a consultant in diabetes at the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

I guess there are a lot of worst studies to be part of. Actually, eating chocolate for a whole year with the only goal of helping science is kind of interresting…

UK readers, jump on that one!