[PHNUTR-L] Candy Makers Are Pitching Chocolate As a Health Food. But So Far, the Research Is Turning Up Sweet Nothing

[Kathrynne Holden, MS, RD]

Colleagues, the following is FYI and does not necessarily reflect my own
opinion. I have no further knowledge of the topic.
------------------------

washingtonpost.com

Junk-Food Science
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/08/AR2005080801203.html?referrer=email

Candy Makers Are Pitching Chocolate As a Health Food. But So Far, the 
Research Is Turning Up Sweet Nothing

By Ben Harder
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, August 9, 2005; HE01

Chocolate maker Mars Inc. says its pipeline is full of healthful 
products containing compounds from the plant that gives chocolate its 
unique flavor. Already, the company sells one cocoa bar that it claims 
has "proven heart-health benefits." The Hershey Co., meanwhile, plans to 
launch an "extra dark" chocolate bar this September that will flaunt its 
potentially beneficial cocoa content. Smaller chocolatiers tout the same 
ingredient in a growing portfolio of products.

So: Chocolate is a proven health food?

Don't bite on that one yet. Lalita Kaul, a nutritionist at Howard 
University Medical School and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic 
Association, says that chocolate "is a pleasure food with reduced risks" 
compared to many other common choices.

Chocolate makers are not using that more considered language in their 
product claims, of course. They are making the most of the possibility 
that some sweets--for example, dark chocolates made with minimal 
processing -- are better for you than alternative indulgences. The Food 
and Drug Administration has not issued a ruling regarding the health 
benefits of the compounds found in chocolate, so product claims have not 
been approved by the agency.

With its CocoaVia bar, which is partly dark chocolate, Mars says it has 
taken a step closer to creating a true health food. But so far, only one 
study has examined the bar's effects in people, and its results have 
been presented at an American Heart Association meeting but haven't been 
published in a peer-reviewed journal. Nearly all studies linking cocoa 
consumption to health gains have been funded by manufacturers, and few 
have looked at commercially available products.

Instead, most research has dealt with experimental mixtures that are 
rich in cocoa, a bitter extract from cacao beans, and relatively sparing 
with fats and sugars. An early formulation, served as a beverage, was 
unpopular among tasters, said Mars's chief scientist, Harold H. Schmitz.

Cocoa contains fiber and some useful minerals and vitamins, but most 
experts say its key constituents are its flavanols. Similar to chemicals 
abundant in red wine, purple grape juice and some teas, fruits and 
vegetables, those compounds impart the bitter taste.

Some studies suggest that flavanols have positive effects on blood 
vessels and that they act as antioxidants to prevent harmful changes to 
cells and substances in the body. See "What Can Brown Do for You? A 
Tantalizing Taste of Research" below. Cocoa is an ingredient in most but 
not all chocolates.

"Much depends on how much cocoa is in the chocolate," said Susan Moores, 
a nutritional consultant in St. Paul, Minn., and another spokeswoman for 
the dietetics association. "Dark has more [cocoa] than milk [chocolate], 
which has more than white, which has none." As a general rule, she said, 
"the darker and often the more bitter, the better."

In a recent study, U.S. Department of Agriculture researchers, supported 
by an industry group called the America Cocoa Research Institute, found 
that standard cocoa powders had the greatest concentrations of certain 
flavanols and of antioxidants overall among chocolate products. Baking 
chocolate was close behind. Dark chocolate and baking chips, as well as 
cocoa powders that had been treated by a method called Dutch processing, 
contained fewer potentially beneficial compounds. Milk chocolate -- the 
most widely available type for retail sale, and the love object of 
America's most enthusiastic chocolate consumers -- contained the fewest, 
about 10 percent of what's in top cocoa powders.

Even within a given type of chocolate, cocoa content varies from product 
to product. St. Louis--based chocolatier Bissinger's sells one dark 
chocolate that's 60 percent cocoa by mass, just as the upcoming 
Hershey's product is said to be.

Cocoa content, however, may not reflect how rich a product is in 
flavanols. The compounds can be destroyed at many points on the path 
from plantation to supermarket shelf, Schmitz said. Mars guarantees "at 
least 100 mg of cocoa flavanols" per bar of CocoaVia. But information 
that could be used to compare products' flavanol content isn't readily 
available.

In any case, the health claim on CocoaVia's package is based not on 
flavanols or anything else in chocolate but on cholesterol-blocking 
compounds called sterols, nearly all of them derived from soybeans, that 
have been added to the bar. While the Food and Drug Administration has 
not ruled on flavanols, it does permit claims about heart health for 
sterol-rich products .

CocoaVia "is more innocuous than a chocolate bar. It's a granola bar 
with chocolate added," said Bonnie Liebman of the Center for Science in 
the Public Interest, a consumer group that closely follows food issues. 
"Plant sterols have been shown in solid studies to lower cholesterol."

Said Moores: "If a person likes the taste of CocoaVia and is looking for 
a taste of chocolate that has a few extras inside, it may be the product 
for them. To rely on it to improve heart health, however, would likely 
be for naught."

Standard chocolate foods and beverages are even less likely to benefit 
health, scientists say, because chocolate tends to be dense with 
calories and saturated fats.

CocoaVia is the vanguard of Mars's efforts to "reinvent" cocoa as an 
ingredient in healthful, low-calorie foods, said Schmitz. "Fully 
capturing the potential was not going to be done through traditional 
cocoa-based products."

CocoaVia has a "pretty good" health profile, said cardiovascular 
nutritionist Penny Kris-Etherton of Pennsylvania State University, who 
has received funding from the American Cocoa Research Institute, which 
is supported by Mars and others in the candy industry. The good profile 
is partly because each 0.8-ounce bar contains only 80 calories. (An 
equivalent portion of a Mars 3 Musketeers bar has about 96 calories, 
though a whole bar contains 260 calories.)

Once people have met their recommended daily intake of fruit, vegetables 
and other nutritious foods, most of them can safely consume a small 
number of "discretionary calories" in any form they wish, Kris-Etherton 
said. But, estimating that she can permit herself no more than 200 daily 
bonus calories, she added, "It's especially hard for someone with low 
calorie needs to work in a candy bar that might have 250 calories. I 
can't even eat a whole candy bar or I'll exceed my discretionary 
allowance for the day."

Given flavanols' potential benefits, she said, "I wish there were some 
other ways to incorporate cocoa in our diet apart from confectionary 
products and desserts."

That's one area where scientists are hard at work, according to Carl L. 
Keen, a professor of nutrition and internal medicine at the University 
of California, Davis, who has collaborated with Mars. He said 
researchers are close to identifying specific, beneficial compounds in 
cocoa that could be used to enrich foods or to design medications. Mars 
recently announced that it's courting pharmaceutical companies 
interested in synthesizing cocoa constituents such as flavanols.

In the meantime, for all the promotion of chocolate's health benefits, 
there is virtually no definitive, long-term, gold-standard research in 
humans by independent researchers that demonstrate health benefits of 
chocolate. For now, consumers must carry on with little information 
about whether beneficial compounds that may be in their favorite candy 
bars offset all the sugar and fat that surround them. And, of course, 
there's the question of whether they can consume the extra calories 
without putting on weight.

Ah, that sticky issue of calories and weight, to which most discussions 
of food science eventually return.

Chocolate, said Howard University's Kaul, has "no health risks in 
moderation." But, she added, "If somebody takes two bars a day, I'll 
say, 'Can we cut it down, maybe to one initially and then a half?' " ·

Ben Harder covers health and medicine for Science News.
-- 
Kathrynne Holden, MS, RD < fivestar at nutritionucanlivewith.com >
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