Using Chocolate As a Natural High Blood Pressure Remedy
When searching for a natural high blood pressure remedy, the most important thing to consider is whether it is something that you will be able to incorporate into your life. After all, even the most effective cure for any disease is useless if the patient doesn’t take it. That said, there is one food that has been shown to be beneficial in the treatment of hypertension that very few people will have trouble consuming on a regular basis. That food is chocolate, specifically very dark chocolate.
“Chocolate is actually good for me?” you may be asking. Yes, it is very good for you, so long as you choose the right chocolate to eat. In the past, before it became loaded with milk and sugar and all manner of other additives, chocolate was actually prescribed by pharmacists as a cure-all for a wide variety of maladies and conditions. These days, its benefits have been more empirically established.
Several studies have been performed in recent years to investigate chocolate’s use as a natural high blood pressure remedy. They discovered that the greatest benefit was found for those people who consume very dark chocolate. This is the variety that does not come with a huge amount of added milk or sugar added. The sugar adds unnecessary calories and the milk interferes with the method of action by which dark chocolate is beneficial for the body.
The benefits of chocolate come primarily from the huge amount of flavonoids contained in dark chocolate. These are a form of antioxidants that not only help clean up cellular debris from the body and help protect it from the ravages of free radicals, but also serve to help blood vessels relax and dilate, easing the flow of blood through them. This relaxing of blood vessels results in a modest, but significant drop in blood pressure.
The best way to use chocolate as a blood pressure remedy is to consume small amounts of high quality, very dark chocolate. That will allow you to avoid overindulging while still gaining all the benefits chocolate has to offer. Choose a chocolate that is 75% or higher in cocoa solids to ensure that you get the benefits you are after. Still, the drop is modest, so even the best chocolate will not sure your hypertension on its own.