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Sometimes we at Biohackr Health just have to put good news into the universe. Do you like to eat dark chocolate? According to the school of Public Health at Harvard, dark chocolate can lower your risk of Type 2 Diabetes. Seriously. This is a published study, “Dark chocolate consumption associated with lower type 2 diabetes risk,” published in the British Medical Journal December 2024.
They did the study because they found the relationship between chocolate and diabetes was inconsistent, and they wondered there could be a difference between milk chocolate and dark chocolate? The researchers used data from the large Nurses Health Studies I and II and the Health Professionals Follow up Study, which looked at 192,000 adults over 30 years. The adults all started without diabetes. The study required reporting their food habits. At the end of the study 19,000 of them had type 2 diabetes.
What did they find?
- Participants who had 5 ounces of any kind of chocolate per week had a 10% lower risk of Type 2 diabetes
- Dark chocolate had an even larger impact- 21% lower risk of type 2 diabetes
- There was a 3% reduction for every serving of dark chocolate consumed/week
- Increased consumption of milk chocolate, but NOT dark chocolate, was associated with long term weight gain, a risk factor to develop type 2 diabetes.
They were surprised by the clear split, with dark chocolate clearly having more benefit. They postulate that even though milk and dark chocolate are similar in calories and saturated fat, dark chocolate has polyphenols (antioxidants) which may offset the calories and fat.
Of note, this is not carte blanche to go wild with chocolate. The authors state the chocolate amounts are relatively low relative to national averages and “may not apply to individuals with very high chocolate consumption.”
Our thoughts?
As dark chocolate lovers, we love this! Curious if we can see on the CGM (continuous glucose monitors) if there is a difference in sugar spiking in milk chocolate vs. dark chocolate. Regardless, yay us.
