|
COPYRIGHT 2005 International Medical News Group
One need look no further than the billions of dollars reaped yearly by the candy industry to know that chocolate is one of the world's best-loved foods.
The plethora of positive health reports about chocolate in recent years is also music to the ears of chocolate lovers and makers. A spate of studies within the last decade suggest that the cocoa plant and its derivatives, by virtue of polyphenolic constituents, confer significant antioxidant benefits, particularly in terms of curbing cardiovascular inflammation. Indeed, cocoa and chocolate are rich sources of flavonoids (Curr. Opin. Lipidol. 2002; 13:41-9). Of course, such studies (Lancet 1996;348:834; BMJ 1998;317:1683-4; Phytochem. Rev. 2002;1:231-40) were eagerly picked up by and funneled through the mass media to the public for general consumption, as it were, potentially contributing to mistaken beliefs.
The word cocoa is an adaptation of the word cacao, used by Spanish colonists in the mid-1500s and derived from kakaw in the Olmec and Mayan languages. Chocolate comes from the Nahuatl (Aztec language) word cacahuatl, which is derived from the Olmec/Mayan expression for the derivative of the cocoa plant. During this period, the Spanish brought cocoa to Europe, and, as it spread throughout the continent, the medicinal use of the cocoa plant and its derivatives joined the Western canon (J. Nutr. 2000;130 [suppl. 8s]:s2057-72).
Assorted Remedies
Since that time, more than 100 medicinal uses for...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
