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More Than a Diet Myth? Dark Chocolate/Cacao Won't Get You Jacked, but it May Help Maintain a Slim Waist Over Time

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Dark  chocolate & body comp? I am not a fan of referring to the hierarchy of evidence ( Haidich 2010 , Figure 1 ) to justify discussing a meta-analysis (in itself a mix of statistical data analysis and, you guessed it, the discussion of individual RCTs and/or observational studies) but I guess in the case of the putative weight-loss benefits of dark chocolate, I can make an exception. How come? Well, if you do a cursory review of the experimental evidence you will realize pretty soon that the term "conflicting" is not strong enough to describe what you see. Accordingly, I am grateful that a group of Iranian researchers conducted a meta-analysis of all relevant RCTs investigating the impact of cocoa/DC on body weight, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC). You can learn more about chocolate and cacao at the SuppVersity Chocolicious Statin 4 Women Real Cacao Delicious + More The Chocolate Diet for Women Cacao for the Gut Micro...
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Cacao, Delicious + Ergogenic - Performance Up and Muscle Damage Down After 7d on 21g/d of Hershey's 100% Cacao

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Hershey's 100% Cacao, soon also available at your local GNC? If you look at the results of the study at hand, it does appear likely that a regular "food item" can compete with sign. more expensive sport supplements. From previous SuppVersity  articles you know that several studies have demonstrated the protective effects of cocoa consumption, due to its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. From the news and my critical evaluations of the study results, you do yet also know that (a) regular chocolate lacks most of these beneficial effects and that the effects have (b) often been hilariously exaggerated in the laypress. Furthermore, studies that probe the efficacy of cacao or high cacao chocolate on exercise performance are, unlike studies on its anti-oxidant effects (e.g. Berry. 2010; Davison. 2012), something in-between "rare" and "quasi non-existent". In spite of its relatively small size (fifteen 15-18 year old soccer players), a rece...
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The Latest Gut Microbiome Modulators: Beneficial Effects of Cacao, Negative Effects of Acidic Water and Preliminary Evidence of the Negative Impact of Gluten & Whole Grains

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Pancakes al cacao & your gut: Bad grains and good cacao? There is an increasing amount of interesting scientific publications on the role of the gut microbiome in health and disease. Unfortunately, the evidence on what exactly influences the number and types of bacteria in our gut in a beneficial way and even what exactly a "beneficial way" actually is, is yet largely unknown. In today's installment of the SuppVersity Short News , I am going to take a closer look at a selection of recent studies that may shed at least some light at the previously mentioned questions. You can learn more about the gut & your health at the SuppVersity Bugs Dictate What You Crave Sweeteners & Your Gut Foods, Not Ma- cros for the Gut Lactulose For Gut & Health Probiotics Don't Cut Body Fat The Macrobiotic MaPi2.0 Diet Cacao as a gut microbiome modulator - The first study we're going to look at deals with cacao. Cacao and its effect on th...
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6 + 1 Convincing Reasons You Should Not Subscribe to the "Chocolate is Good For You" Hype Indiscriminately. Plus: Which Chocolate is the Healthiest? Organic, Baking, Dark?

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Your hedonic response usually isn't a good food guide I have never been a great chocolate eater, and the soothing and misleading news about research that would show that chocolate consumption was good for your heart, your brain and your belly have not yet changed this. For a good reason, as I should say. Being written for the average inhabitant of the Western Obesity Belt, the authors of these articles willingly accept that their readers will (mis-)understand them as a soothing incentive not just to maintain their overtly hedonistic lifestyle, but to top it off with an extra portion of super-sized chocolate cookies... I mean, it's "chocolate", right? So it's good for you, even the latest science says so, right? And not just that, even the NY Times writes chocolate is a "health food" ( NY Times. 2009 ) Right, science says: Chocolate is good for you! But when we look closer, the chocolate that is good for you has little to no resemblance to the ca...
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The Myostatin Inhibiting & Myogenic Effects of Epicatechin: Cacao & Tea Contain Well-Known But Overlooked Anabolic

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Does a flavanol in " real chocolate" help you shed the fat and build the muscle? If you are like me, you are probably already using cacao to build muscle. Whether the effects of the occasional dark chocolate bar are so profound that you'd notice if you'd skip them, is however questionable. Irrespective of the latest results from Gabriela Gutierrez-Salmean and her colleagues from the University of California , VA San Diego Health Care Systems and the Escuela Superior de Medicina del Instituto Politécnico Nacional at the Seccion de Posgrado in Mexico City present in a soon-to-be-published paper in the The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry (Gutierrez-Salmean. 2013), by the way. "Epi" as in "Epistane" (*) was yesterday... ... "epi" as in chocolate epicatechin is the future (* Epistane was the brand name of a "pro-steroid"). This could be the take home message of future follow up studies in human beings, if the r...
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