Cocoa 'Vitamin' Health Benefits Could Outshine Penicillin

Science Daily ^ | March 11, 2007 | Unattributed

[Red Badger]

I used to eat garlic WHOLE! Take a couple of the RAW pods everyday like they were pills!...............

[bert]

I eat my chocolate every day. Sam's from Walmart. Belgian. Good.

[CDHart]

The cinnamon is good for you, too.

Carolyn

[Varda]

This would be more impressive if all other hunter-gatherer societies weren't just like the Kuna. The killer diseases are a result of modern high carbohydrate diets. Go ahead drink cocoa just don't add sugar (good luck with that).

[aruanan]

"The same diseases are also reduced with regular exercise and a diet low in saturated fats"

Yes, but maybe those with higher levels of epicatechin are stimulated to get more exercise and desire diets lower in saturated fats.

[Constitution Day]

Good for me!

I am severely allergic to penicillin.

[MarkL]

It certainly explains a lot about the Oompa-Loompas.

Mark

[dangerdoc]

It's not an antibiotic, they are saying that the discovery is as important as the discovery of antibiotics.

[dangerdoc]

Huh?

[Constitution Day]

I was trying to make a joke.

I really did read the article, honest. :)

[aruanan]

Huh?

Causes and effects can run all sorts of weird, unexpected ways.

[Old Professer]

These people shun modern medicine; they still rely on chants and homemade potions; where does the research team get its historical data?

Infant mortality is high by western standards and infanticide was practiced up until recently among some tribes.

The people are very insular, marriages are arranged and breeding remains largely within the group.

All these things could easily skew the conclusions drawn and presented here.

According to much of what I could find, cocoa is not a cash or food crop, so where do the Kuna get their cocoa?

[Old Professer]

Read the whole article before you raid the Ovaltine shelf; most commercial cocoa has had the bitter epicatechin removed during initial processing for market.

Maybe the lead researcher has his eye on an interest in an extract formula for public sale.

[Ditter]

I am allergic to both chocolate and penicillin, there may be some connection.

[Old Professer]

Don't forget the natural selection inherent in primitive, tribal societies where the weak are weeded out early on and leave living the strongest members.

[dangerdoc]

I would need to see his data and how he analyzed it to comment, but I agree, this whole thing smells funny.

There have been some very intelligent people that have gone off on a tangent in the past. They one that comes to mind is Linus Pauling and Vitamin C. I also personally saw a brilliant organic chemist reduced to spittle-flying tirades any time fluoride in the water system was brought up.

Just because you are well educated and intelligent does not mean that all of your beliefs are true and rational.

[hunter112]

It certainly explains a lot about the Oompa-Loompas.

Ha! Now that was witty!

Certainly, the health-food faddist's supplement of the week...

[-YYZ-]

Of course, just because the fluoridation of drinking water was latched onto by some true nuts on the fringe, doesn't mean that it's necessary or good for you, either.

[aruanan]

Don't forget the natural selection inherent in primitive, tribal societies where the weak are weeded out early on and leave living the strongest members.

And a lot of those strongest members look pretty bad.