Med Health News

Tag: cocoa

  • Can Too Much Caffeine Kill You? Here’s What You Should Know

    Can Too Much Caffeine Kill You? Here’s What You Should Know

    Recent news reports of a teen who overdosed on caffeine and, unfortunately, died. Here’s what you should know.

    Recent events show that it seems even your coffee can be fatal. A high school 16-year old was pronounced dead on April 27, 2017 a few hours after he blacked out in class. The official cause of death was stated as probably a fatal arrhythmia or other cardiac event.

    His classmates informed the medical coroner that the teen drank a McDonald’s cafe latte, a large Mountain Dew, and a 16-ounce energy drink all within two hours. All three drinks are teeming with caffeine. The medical coroner theorized that the sudden burst of caffeine to his system disrupted his heart so much that it ultimately lead to the teen’s death.

    The American Academy of Pediatrics warns that teens and children shouldn’t ingest caffeine at all. The FDA recommends that adults limit their caffeine intake to 400 milligrams daily.

    If You Don’t Overdo It, Caffeine Is Actually Healthy for You

    But drinking caffeinated drinks can actually be very healthy as long as you don’t overdo it. For example, research shows that drinking coffee during key times can enhance your subsequent activities:

    • Drinking coffee before exercising boosts your metabolism and blood flow to your muscles, which helps you work out for longer without feeling exhausted. It also lowers muscle pain afterward.
    • Regularly drinking coffee can help protect your liver from cirrhosis caused by drinking alcohol. It also helps prevent you from developing diabetes, neurodegenerative disorders, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.
    • Drinking coffee 24 hours before taking a written test helps you perform better because it boosts your memory.



    These researchers recommend drinking only up to five cups of coffee daily. Drinking more than that can undo these health benefits. Ready-made coffee you buy at restaurants usually come loaded with unhealthy cremes, artificial chemicals, sugar, and other unfavorable ingredients. It’s best to brew your own coffee using pure coffee beans without adding milk or sugar.

    Healthier Naturally Caffeinated Beverages

    If you want to maximize caffeine’s holistic benefits without risking a fatal overdose, you can choose these better beverage options that come with a slew of other health benefits:

    Green or white tea. Green and white teas have higher cancer-fighting polyphenol and catechin content than other teas. They’ve also been found to boost your immunity and cardiovascular health. Their high antioxidant content also helps slow aging and lengthens your life. Of course, they’re both caffeine-rich, which means you also get all the benefits of caffeine when drinking either tea.

    Hot cocoa. Hot cocoa made from dark chocolate or pure cocoa has a high caffeine content. They’re also low-calorie and filled with antioxidants. Its flavanols have been found to boost your cognitive abilities for up to three hours. Eating or drinking cocoa regularly also protects your heart and helps you lose weight. Enjoying hot cocoa regularly means you get all these benefits and more, plus all the benefits that come with caffeine too!

    Caffeine can heal and protect your body, but don’t chug down too many caffeinated drinks within the span of a couple of hours because that can lead to cardiac complications. If you have children, it’s probably impossible to keep them away from caffeinated beverages because most popular sodas are teeming with caffeine. But do keep in mind that experts recommend that children and teens don’t drink caffeine, and that adults have a daily limit of 400 milligrams.

  • Why Doctors Want You to Eat Chocolate This Valentine’s Day

    Why Doctors Want You to Eat Chocolate This Valentine’s Day

    Valentine’s Day is hallmarked by the giving of chocolates to your romantic interest. Medical and scientific research reveal that gifting chocolates is not simply an act of affection. It turns out that regularly consuming chocolate prevents cardiovascular disease, promotes weight loss, and aids in meditation. Chocolate is no longer a junk food – to the contrary, it’s a holistic treat that supports the mind and body.

    Chocolate was first introduced into Europe soon after Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés came upon the Maya and Aztecs and observed them preparing cacao drinks. Writings from 1556 contain a passage written by an anonymous Spanish conquistador describing how cacao seeds are ground into powder and mixed methodically to create a foaming liquid.

    The anonymous conquistador wrote,

    This [foaming] drink is the healthiest thing, and the greatest sustenance of anything you could drink in the world, because he who drinks a cup of this liquid, no matter how far he walks, can go a whole day without eating anything else.

    Of course the original Mayan and Aztec cacao drinks didn’t contain sugar and the tasty additives of modern-day chocolate products. Even so, what that conquistador wrote half a millennium ago is surprisingly true of cacao and today’s dark chocolate products according to scientific experts and physicians.

    Dark Chocolate Is Good for Your Heart

    Regularly consuming dark chocolate increases artery flexibility while also decreasing blood vessel leukocyte adhesion. Arterial stiffness and long-term buildup of white blood cells stuck to blood vessel walls are two significant factors in atherosclerosis.

    In fact an 11-year study revealed that people who regularly consume up to 3.5 ounces of chocolate daily experience a 5.4 percent decreased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

    Furthermore according to Professor Larry Stevens of Northern Arizona University, dark chocolate is a vasodilator and regularly consuming it lowers blood pressure for the long term. According to findings by Louisiana State University, one explanation for this is that your gut bacteria convert cacao into compounds that protect blood vessel cells from stress and reduce inflammation.

    Chocolate Helps You Lose Weight

    Regularly munching on any kind of chocolate, regardless of cacao content, leads to weight loss. Research by Dr. Beatrice Golomb, an associate professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego revealed that people who ate chocolate five times a week experienced weight loss without an increase in physical exercise. She states that a “5-foot tall woman weighing about 120 pounds… was likely to be about five pounds lighter if she was a frequent eater of chocolate.”

    According to Joshua Lambert of Penn State University, one factor contributing to chocolate’s weight loss effects is that some specific polyphenols found in cacao may inhibit pancreatic lipase, which is the enzyme responsible for digesting dietary fat. Thus, these polyphenols could be preventing the fat in commercial chocolate from being digested and absorbed into the body.

    Another contributing factor included in Louisiana State University’s findings is that your gut bacteria convert cacao’s fiber into short chain fatty acids, which make you feel full after you absorb them.

    Chocolate Helps You Meditate

    Chocolate Mindfulness meditation is an increasingly popular kind of meditation. It involves making you more aware of your senses by taking a piece of chocolate and deeply inhaling the chocolate’s aroma, staring at the chocolate and examining it deeply; and finally placing the chocolate into your mouth and trying to notice each one of its 300 flavors while playing with it with your tongue and allowing it to melt. Then you repeat the process until all the chocolate is consumed, and while doing so you’re gently keeping your mind focused on the chocolate, shepherding your focus back when it wanders away.

    Professor Stevens’ research sheds light on why this meditation technique is effective. He conducted a study involving 122 participants between 18 to 25 years old consuming confection containing 60 percent cacao. Brain activity was monitored via EEG and blood pressure was recorded.

    When we asked him via email, he responded that the 60 percent cacao group experienced an increase in alpha brain waves, which is one of the desired meditative states. The group also experienced an increase in beta brain waves. He stated that increasing alpha and beta waves should produce “a more alert, attentive, and calm state.” Being calm but attentive is key for meditation.

    However the participants experienced a short-term increase in blood pressure when consuming the 60 percent cacao. The 60 percent cacao confection still lowers blood pressure in the long-term, but the short-term increase in blood pressure might be troubling for some people, like those with hypertension.

    Thus, Professor Stevens introduced an amino acid naturally found in green tea, L-theanine, which lowers blood pressure, to the confection and administered it to another group of participants. This group experienced an immediate drop in blood pressure rather than the short-term increase experienced by the 60 percent cacao group.

    He reports in his email that this 60 percent cacao plus L-theanine group also experienced “a slight increase in alpha [waves] over that of the 60 percent cacao only [group].”

    He states that theoretically, a mixture containing L-theanine and 90 to 100 percent cacao should further increase the desired brain waves to produce a more powerful attentive and calm state. He’s looking forward to conducting future studies involving higher-content cacao and L-theanine.

    Thus, consuming a mixture of L-theanine and 60 or more percent cacao can aid in meditation by facilitating your transition into a calm but alert state.

    However, Professor Stevens also hopes that a high-content cacao chocolate bar containing L-theanine will become a mainstream healthy alternative to coffee due to its attention-increasing and blood pressure lowering properties. He states, “A lot of us in the afternoon get a little fuzzy… so we could have a higher cacao content chocolate bar and it would increase attention.”

    When you give your love chocolates this Valentine’s Day you’re protecting their hearts and waistlines, while enriching their mind. Conversely, if you’re receiving chocolates their health benefits should keep you from feeling guilty about enjoying them. It’s even better if you’re making your own gift chocolates because you can add L-theanine to them to add more blood pressure-lowering and mental therapeutic effects.