De-Stress with Chocolate?

Chocolate lovers will be happy to hear that new research has shown that eating dark chocolate each day may reduce stress.

A new study by researchers in Switzerland have found that dark chocolate may help improve stress. They took 30 subjects and fed them 40g of dark chocolate a day (20g in the morning and the remaining 20g in the afternoon) and measured levels of certain stress hormones in the subjects blood and urine. They found that in the group of high stress anxiety subjects that these levels of stress hormones decreased over 2 weeks. Does this mean though that we should be eating chocolate every day?....

It's important to remember that dark chocolate may sound healthier but it still contains a significant amount of fat and sugar and can contribute to weght gain. Eating it for morning and afternoon tea may also displace other healthy foods from your diet (e.g. if you switch chocolate for your normal mid morning piece of fruit). It is also important to realise that this was a small study (only 30 subjects) and that much more research needs to be done before we can conclusively say that it is beneficial for us, so for now enjoy it in moderation (even doing that may reduce your stress levels!)