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Is caffeine good or bad for your heart?There’s no doubt that caffeine can raise your blood pressure and heart rate.But consuming moderate amounts of caffeine daily also has been linked to supple arteries and reduced risk of heart failure and atrial fibrillation.Now there’s more good heart health news for those of us who love our coffee, tea and cocoa…Caffeine and your blood vesselsVascular disease, damage of blood vessels and their resulting consequences — heart attack and stroke — are among the leading causes of death in the general population. These risks are even higher in patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases...

McVitie’s Penguins and Club biscuits are no longer allowed to carry the word “chocolate” on the label due to a recipe reformulation caused by cocoa prices soaring over 150 per cent in 2024–2025 and hitting $10,000 per tonne in April.UK regulations require 25 per cent cocoa solids for milk chocolate coatings, but Pladis, McVitie’s owner, reduced cocoa content below that threshold and opted for palm and shea oils to keep costs down. The iconic Club slogan, “If you like a lot of chocolate on your biscuit, join our Club,” became “If you like a lot of biscuit in your break,...

Your daily hot cocoa might do more than warm you up—it could also prevent heart disease and the inflammation that drives it, according to a recent study. As we get older, our bodies become more inflamed, increasing our risks of developing chronic disease and dying. A large-scale study tracked people who took daily cocoa supplements for two years and found that body-wide inflammation stayed steady instead of rising—with the strongest effects in those who had higher inflammation at baseline. In the Cocoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS) trial, daily cocoa extract supplements were linked to a 27 percent lower...

Could cocoa extract supplements rich in cocoa flavanols reduce inflammation and, in turn, prevent age-related chronic diseases? In a new study from the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), investigators looked at changes in five age-related markers of inflammation among participants who received daily cocoa supplements over several years. They found that hsCRP—an inflammatory marker that can signal increased risk of cardiovascular disease—decreased in participants taking the cocoa extract supplement, suggesting its anti-inflammatory potential may help explain its heart-protective effects. Nutritional interventions have become an increasingly attractive solution for slowing inflammatory aging, so-called "inflammaging." Cocoa extract has been shown...

Cocoa prices are at a 47-year high.Your sweet tooth cravings are about to get more expensive. In 2024, the price of cocoa hit an all-time high, reaching a staggering $5,874 on the New York commodities market, according to BBC. This, however, wasn't some one-off event, but rather, the culmination of a more than two-year uphill swing in prices that's already rocking the confectionary industry and is trickling down to consumers like you. “Historic cocoa prices are expected to limit earnings growth this year,” Michele Buck, the president and CEO of the Hershey Company, shared during a Feb. 8 earnings call....

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. - A Florida man is behind bars after a road rage fit that included intentionally ramming into cars, striking them with a tire iron and even throwing a barbecue at deputies, the Brevard County Sheriff's Office said Tuesday. The incidents occurred Tuesday morning in Cocoa, near the intersection of School Street and Bay Avenue, officials said. Raymond Hofmann is in custody and faces several charges, including resisting arrest, aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer and other charges relating to his alleged road rage fit. Hofmann reportedly parked his Chevrolet Tahoe in the middle of the street...

A Florida woman was arrested on March 16 after police officers in Cocoa, Florida, said she threatened a McDonald’s employee and pointed a gun at them. Quavi Young, 26, was booked into jail on three charges: aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, open carry of a weapon, and driving with a suspended license. According to her arrest report, Young pulled her car up to the speaker at the drive-thru and requested a meal that was not on the menu. When the McDonald’s worker told Young her order could not be completed because the order wasn’t on the menu, Young pulled...

COCOA, Fla. (CBS12) — Police made a troubling discovery after a welfare check led to The Cocoa Police Department said they responded to a residence at 2111 Otterbein Avenue on Jan. 1, in regards to a welfare check on 80-year-old Kathleen Ruhlander. The woman's granddaughter contacted police saying Robert Ruhlander, 53, the elderly woman's son, wouldn't let her see her grandmother. When another relative attempted to reach out Ruhlander told her the elderly woman was, "taking a nap." Officers said multiple welfare checks were attempted that day, however Ruhlander wouldn't let the officers inside the residence, closing the front door...

COCOA, Fla. – An 18-year-old man was arrested Tuesday after police said he accidentally shot a woman, also 18, dancing with him at a possible Cocoa house party nearly a month ago, according to Local 10′s Orlando news partner, WKMG. An arrest warrant affidavit shows officers responded to a shots fired call at 1044 Azalea Lane around 10:25 p.m. on Nov. 27. Upon arrival, police said they found a woman who had been shot and transported her to the hospital. Multiple witnesses told police that the victim had been “twerking” near 18-year-old Maurqice Thomas when a firearm in his possession...

Cocoa only reduces blood pressure and arterial stiffness when they are elevated, a study finds. Cocoa flavanols have previously been found to lower blood pressure and arterial stiffness as much as some blood pressure medication. However, how effective flavanols are in everyday life in reducing blood pressure has remained unknown, as previous studies in this area have been performed in tightly controlled experimental settings. Surrey's new research reduces concerns that cocoa as a treatment for raised blood pressure could pose health risks by decreasing blood pressure when it is not raised, paving the way for it to be potentially used...

Archaeologists have discovered an approximately 2,000-year-old Mayan pot in a cave in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo.The National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) announced the discovery in a statement Tuesday, saying that the 13-centimeter-high “chocolatier style” pot had been dated to the late pre-classic period of 300 B.C. to 250 A.D.INAH archaeologists José Antonio Reyes Solís and Enrique Terrones González visited a cave on a Playa del Carmen property owned by a religious association after receiving a report on it from biologist and speleologist Roberto Rojo.Reyes said they found the pot near the eastern wall of the Cueva de...

You may love chocolate, but you should probably start preparing yourself to say goodbye to it: Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have predicted that cacao plants are likely to go extinct as early as 2050 due to climate change. But there’s one glimmer hope on the horizon: Mars—the candy company which makes such chocolate treats as the Snickers and the Twix bar—has teamed up with the University of California on a new method that may help save future cacao crops.

You may be surprised to know how far back chocolate goes -- perhaps 1,000 years in what's now the United States. Evidence of chocolate has been found in northwestern New Mexico's Chaco Canyon, at Pueblo Bonito. The discovery indicates trade was under way between the Chaco Canyon and cacao growers in Central America -- more than 1,000 miles away. Crown says importing the material would have been a major undertaking.

Stained teapot reveals an ancient love of chocolate By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 18/07/2002) A teapot has provided evidence that our love affair with chocolate began 1,000 years earlier than previously thought. Archaeologists have shown that cocoa was cultivated in the land between the Americas - including what today is Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize - for thousands of years. Now a study of brown stains on 2,600-year-old Mayan pottery from Belize has identified cocoa residues thought to have been left by ancient drinking chocolate. The discovery, reported today in Nature, pushes back the earliest chemical evidence of cocoa use...

Known by the scientific name Vanilla tahitensis, Tahitian vanilla is found to exist only in cultivation; natural, wild populations of the orchid have never been encountered... "All the evidence points in the same direction," Lubinsky said. "Our DNA analysis corroborates what the historical sources say, namely, that vanilla was a trade item brought to Tahiti by French sailors in the mid-19th century. The French Admiral responsible for introducing vanilla to Tahiti, Alphonse Hamelin, used vanilla cuttings from the Philippines. The historical record tells us that vanilla – which isn't native to the Philippines – was previously introduced to the region...

Whether consuming cocoa, known to be packed with powerful antioxidants that protect our cells from damage, helps us age better, is a question scientists want to definitively answer. They are looking for answers in the blood of 600 individuals age 60 and older who participated in the largest trial ever to assess the impact of a cocoa supplement as well as a common multivitamin, on reducing the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, and other health outcomes, says Dr. Yanbin Dong, geneticist and cardiologist at the Georgia Prevention Institute at the Medical College of Georgia. The COSMOS Trial (COcoa Supplement...

BIRMINGHAM, United Kingdom — As winter arrives, hot tea and cocoa naturally become popular drink choices with a lot of people. A new study finds drinking cocoa is not just the popular choice, it may also be the “smart” choice as well. Researchers at the University of Birmingham say consuming flavanol-rich products, such as cocoa, increases one’s mental performance. Flavanols are a group of molecules which occur naturally in fruits and vegetables. They’re a member of the plant flavonoid family and are common in cocoa, grapes, apples, tea, berries, and even wine. While previous studies reveal these molecules can improve...

Our love affair with chocolate is much older than we thought, and newly discovered traces of cocoa on ancient pots suggest it started in the rainforests of what is now Ecuador some 5300 years ago. That’s nearly 1500 years older than earlier evidence, and it shifts the nexus of cocoa production from Central America to the upper Amazon. “This is an incredibly strong demonstration,” says Rosemary Joyce, an archaeologist at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the new study. “It puts to rest any lingering claims that the use of [cocoa] pods … was an invention...

A convicted felon who has claimed that he had gay sex with President Barack Obama is running to become mayor of a Florida town. Larry Sinclair gave a speech at the National Press Club in 2008, while Obama was running for President, alleging that the then-Senator bought and smoked cocaine and had sex with him in 1999.  Sinclair, who has served prison time in Arizona, Florida and Colorado for forgery, fraud and larceny, is now campaigning to win the mayor’s seat in Cocoa, a town of around 19,000 people, in the November 6 election. The South Carolina native has...

If you’re a chocolate lover like most of normal people out there, boy, do we have bad news for you: according to an official (as in governmental) report courtesy of NOOA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association), due to anthropogenic (as in man-made) climate change/global warming/whatchamacallit, by the year 2050 chocolate will become a thing of the past. Why? Well, due to climate change driven by your gas guzzler, your air conditioner, your latest iPhone or whatever, growing cacao trees will become next to impossible in the not-so-distant future, hence chocolate will suffer the fate of the dodo bird. That means,...