Can you eat chocolate and significantly reduce the risk of cardiovascular ailments? Not quite, but a new study suggests that consuming flavanols, a class of chemicals found in cocoa, will do just that.

An indigenous tribe in Panama known to customarily drink up to four cups a day of cocoa was found to have healthy blood pressure levels at a significantly higher rate than people living in modern societies. This includes their direct descendants who live in suburban areas and drink a reduced amount of cocoa, four cups a week.

Commercially marketed cocoa products (that is, chocolate bars and the like) are subjected to a food processing treatment called dutching that removes these beneficial compounds. The researchers who conducted this study are certain a pharmaceutical treatment using flavanols, specifically procyanidin, will be developed in the near-future.

Via (Red Herring)