那些贪爱巧克力却又担心自己身材的美眉们注意了，德国科学家最近研究得出适量食用恒星粉含量大的深色巧克力有助于健康，可以降低心脏病的发病率。
People who love chocolate often worry about consuming too many calories and sugar.
Now chocolate lovers can rest assured that eating chocolate every day can actually improve your health.
A ten-year study published today by German scientists in the European Heart Journal claims just one small square of chocolate a day can lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart disease.
Previous studies have suggested dark chocolate in small amounts could be good for you, but this is the first study to track its effects over such a long period of time.
They tracked nearly twenty thousand people between the ages of 35 and 65. Those that ate the most, around 7.5 grams of chocolate a day, had lower blood pressure compared to those who ate the least, about 1.7 grams each day.
Dr. Brian Buijsse is a nutritional epidemiologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition and lead researcher of the study.
"Especially their risk of stroke was lower and that could be explained by blood pressure, because high blood pressure is a major risk factor for heart disease and also stroke, but it's higher for stroke."
Scientists believe there would have been 85 fewer heart attacks in their study group if everyone had been eating 7.5 grams of chocolate every day.
But there's also a word of caution before you bite into your much-anticipated Easter bunny: sweet centers and creamy truffles aren't included.
It's the chocolate that counts, and the scientists warn that we mustn't increase our overall intake of calories, or reduce the amount of healthy foods we eat, in order to eat more chocolate.
Buijsse says many people are tackling obesity, which raises the risk of blood pressure and heart disease.
He's keen to stress that chocolate consumption should be kept small.
"If we would make a recommendation in the future, then it will be something that if you eat a low amount of chocolate, that should replace something else, like other sugar sweets, or snacks that also contain many calories."
Small amounts of chocolate may help prevent heart disease, but only if it replaces other high-energy and therefore high-calorie snacks.
The type of chocolate you like to eat is also important. It is believed the benefits derived from chocolate come from flavanols in cocoa, so the darker the chocolate the better its effect.
For China Drive I am Li Dong.
