Dark chocolate
Studies have shown that dark chocolate (but, careful, not milk chocolate), is high not only in cocoa solid but is even higher in flavonoids that can help protect the arteries from clogging.
A little dark chocolate is not a bad thing in your diet, therefore.
But, as in everything, moderation is the keyword. Do not eat a bar of chocolate, even dark, every day, because the risks connected with weight gain are higher than the benefits deriving from the flavonoids.
Alcohol in moderation helps live longer
Moderate drinkers, who drink one or two glasses of beer or wine a day, preferably with their meals, are likely to live longer and enjoy better health than both teetotallers and heavier drinkers.
Many different studies of people's lifestyle, altogether involving more than 1 million people around the world and spanning two and a half decades, have shown that a low dose of alcohol (about half a glass of wine) every day gave the greatest protection for both sexes, 18 percent lower mortality on average, compared to nondrinkers.
After half a glass, the effects diverge between the sexes. Women who drink the equivalent of one glass of wine a day had a 16 percent lower mortality rate than teetotallers. Women who drank two and a half glasses, though, were even with nondrinkers; anything more than that and the risk of dying became in fact greater. Women who drank four servings of alcohol a day were 20 percent more likely to die younger, when compared to abstainers.
The same result was seen in men, but at higher proportions of consumption. Half a glass proved to be the most protective, but men had 10 percent lower mortality at three servings (rather than two for women). At four drinks they broke even with teetotallers, and had a 20 percent greater risk of mortality with seven drinks a day.
Little amounts of alcohol, preferably during meals, seem therefore to be healthy.
This result is in harmony with the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, in which alcohol, mostly wine, is the ideal partner of a dinner or lunch. But that's all. The rest of the day must be absolutely alcohol-free.
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