By Andrew M. Seaman 
 
 A man gives a chocolate demonstration inside The Chocolate Museum in New York, U.S., May 10, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton 
 
 Eating a small amount of chocolate every week or so may decrease the risk of a common and serious type of irregular heart rhythm, according to a new study of people in Denmark. 
 
 People who ate chocolate one to three times per month were about 10 percent less likely to be diagnosed with atrial fibrillation than those who ate the sweet treat less than once a month, researchers found. 
 
 “As part of a healthy diet, moderate intake of chocolate is a healthy snack choice,” said lead author Elizabeth Mostofsky, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. 
 
 The study cannot say for certain that it was the chocolate that prevented atrial fibrillation, however. 
 
 Mostofsky and colleagues write in the journal Heart that eating cocoa and cocoa-containing foods may help heart health because they have a high volume of flavanols, which are compounds that are believed to have anti-inflammatory, blood vessel-relaxing and anti-oxidant properties. 
 
 Past studies have that found eating chocolate - especially dark chocolate, which has more flavanols - is tied to better measures of heart health and decreased risk for certain conditions like heart attacks and heart failure, they add. 
 
 There isn’t as much research on whether chocolate is also linked to a lower risk of atrial fibrillation, which occurs when the upper chamber of the heart beats irregularly. 
 
 At least 2.7 million people in the U.S. have atrial fibrillation, which increases their risk for blood clots and resulting strokes, heart failure and other complications, according to the American Heart Association. 
 
 For the new analysis, the researchers used data collected for a long-term study of 55,502 people in Denmark. The men and women were between 50 and 64 years old when it began, and they provided information about their diets when they entered the study between 1993 and 1997. 
 
 The researchers then linked that diet data to Denmark’s national health registries to see who was diagnosed with atrial fibrillation. 
 
 Overall, about 3,346 cases of atrial fibrillation occurred over an average of 13.5 years. 
 
 Based on their diets at the beginning of the study period, people who ate one serving, about 1 ounce (28.35 grams), of chocolate per week were 17 percent less likely to be diagnosed with atrial fibrillation by the end of the study than people who reported eating chocolate less than once a month. 
 
 Similarly, those who ate 2 to 6 ounces per week were 20 percent less likely to be diagnosed with atrial fibrillation while those who ate more than an ounce of chocolate a day were 16 percent less likely to have the condition. 
 
 Among women, the biggest risk reduction was tied to eating one serving of chocolate per week. For men, the biggest reduction came with eating two to six servings per week. 
 
 “I think our message here is that moderate chocolate intake as part of a healthy diet is an option,” Mostofsky told Reuters Health. 
 
 The researchers caution that they can’t account for unmeasured factors, such as kidney disease and sleep apnea, that may influence the risk of atrial fibrillation. They also didn’t have data on the type of chocolate or the amount of flavanols participants ate. Their diets may have also changed over the nearly 14 years of data collection. 
 
 The data also suggests the participants who ate the most chocolate consumed more calories but had a lower body mass index - a measure of weight in relation to height - than people who ate the least chocolate, noted Alice Lichtenstein, director and senior scientist at the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston. 
 
 “It’s very likely - if I had to bet - that these people were more physically active,” said Lichtenstein, who was not involved in the new study. 
 
 She said people likely can’t get around the fact that they need to have a healthy diet, be physically active and not smoke to optimize their health. 
 
 “There is no quick fix,” she told Reuters Health. 
 
 Drs. Sean Pokorney and Jonathan Piccini write in an accompanying editorial that the study’s findings are interesting and warrant further consideration despite their limitations. 
 
 “A double-blind randomized controlled trial is needed to evaluate the true efficacy of chocolate for the prevention of (atrial fibrillation) and such a trial would need to incorporate quantified doses of cocoa,” write Pokorney and Piccini, of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. 
 
 SOURCE: bit.ly/2q8M5xs Heart, online Mary 23, 2017. ||||| Eating chocolate has been linked with a reduced risk of heart disease and stroke, and now a new study from Denmark suggests that regular consumption of the treat may help to prevent the development of atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heartbeat. 
 
 Researchers found that adults in the study who ate chocolate at least once a month — or more frequently than that — had rates of atrial fibrillation that were 10 to 20 percent lower than those who ate chocolate less than once a month, according to the findings published today (May 23) in the journal Heart. 
 
 Atrial fibrillation is a condition in which the heart's two upper chambers, known as the atria, do not beat at the same pace as the heart's two lower chambers, resulting in an irregular heartbeat. The condition increases a person's risk of strokes, heart failure and cognitive impairment. 
 
 The study found that the strongest overall effects were seen in men and women who ate 1 ounce of chocolate, two to six times per week, said the lead author of the study, Elizabeth Mostofsky, a researcher at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centerin Boston. [5 Surprising Ways to Be Heart Healthy] 
 
 One ounce of chocolate is equal to about three or four small, individual Dove Bar squares, for example, Mostofsky said. 
 
 Between 2.7 million and 6.1 million Americans have atrial fibrillation, so it's important to identify effective ways to help prevent the condition from developing, the researchers wrote in their study. 
 
 Two previous studies have looked at the connection between chocolate consumption and the risk of developing atrial fibrillation, but the results from both of those studies suggested that any association found may be due to chance. 
 
 Unlike those two earlier studies, whose participants were only men or only women, the new study included both men and women. And the new study also included adults who had been clinically diagnosed with atrial fibrillation rather than people who had self-reported the condition, as was the case with the previous studies. 
 
 In the new study, the researchers analyzed data collected from more than 55,000 adults between ages 50 and 64 in Denmark. All of them were participants in an ongoing study called the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health Study. [5 Wacky Things That Are Good for Your Health] 
 
 When the participants were first recruited for the study between 1993 and 1997, they completed a detailed food-frequency questionnaire. One of those questions asked how frequently the participant ate chocolate during the past year. 
 
 The researchers found that more than 3,300 adults were diagnosed with atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter (a condition in which the heart beats faster than usual, but is not irregular) over the follow-up period of 13.5 years, on average. 
 
 When researchers took into consideration other factors that could influence people's development of atrial fibrillation, such as alcohol intake, smoking, obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, the study showed an association between people with a moderate intake of chocolate and a lower risk of developing atrial fibrillation. 
 
 The study does not prove there is a cause-and-effect relationship between eating chocolate and a lowered risk of atrial fibrillation. And although the exact mechanism of how chocolate may prevent atrial fibrillation is not known, it's possible that compounds in chocolate called flavonoids may play a role, the researchers said. 
 
 Flavonoids have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, Mostofsky said. They may limit the inflammatory process in the body, reducing the stickiness of the blood and leading to less scarring of connective tissue. All of these factors may help prevent the electrical remodeling of the heart that leads to atrial fibrillation, she explained. 
 
 The findings showed that for women, the strongest association was seen in those who ate a 1-ounce serving of chocolate, once a week – this level of consumption was linked to a 21 percent lower risk of atrial fibrillation. For men, the strongest association was seen in those who ate two to six 1-ounce servings of chocolate weekly. These men had a 23 percent lower risk of atrial fibrillation. 
 
 But Mostofsky cautioned that chocolate sold in Europe generally has a higher cocoa content than chocolate available in the United States. [6 Distinctive Food Guides from Around the World] 
 
 All in all, the findings suggest that compared with some other snack choices, a moderate intake of chocolate may be a heart-healthy snack, Mostofsky told Live Science. But people should choose chocolate with a higher cocoa content, which has more health benefits and protective compounds, she said. 
 
 One of the limitations of the study is that people in Denmark are more similar to each other in race and ethnicity than people in other countries, so the findings may not be generalizable to other populations, other researchers wrote in an editorial accompanying the study. 
 
 The chocolate consumers in the study were also generally healthier, better educated and had lower rates of high blood pressure and diabetes than the people who didn't eat chocolate, and all of these factors could lessen their odds for atrial fibrillation, wrote the editorial authors Dr. Jonathan Piccini and Dr. Sean Pokorney. Both doctors are cardiologists at the Duke Center for Atrial Fibrillation at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. 
 
 Even so, Piccini and Pokorney said "the findings are interesting and warrant further consideration, given the importance of identifying effective prevention strategies for atrial fibrillation." 
 
 Since 25 percent of adults will develop atrial fibrillation over the course of their lifetime, there is a need to identify additional prevention targets, including lifestyle factors, to lower the risk, according to the editorial. 
 
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– Willy Wonka may have been on to something. Regularly eating chocolate could possibly help prevent a type of irregular heartbeat that can increase the risk of heart failure, strokes, and cognitive impairment, according to a study published Tuesday in Heart. Live Science reports between 2.7 million and 6.1 million Americans have atrial fibrillation, in which the upper chambers of the heart beat at a different pace than the lower chambers. But a study of 55,000 adults in Denmark found that those who ate chocolate at least once a month had rates of atrial fibrillation 10% to 20% lower than those who ate it less than once a month. The best results came from eating an ounce of chocolate two to six times per week. It's impossible to say based on the study whether chocolate consumption was directly responsible for lower rates of atrial fibrillation. Researchers also aren't clear how chocolate could even affect the development of the condition, but it may have something to do with things called flavanols, the Los Angeles Times reports. Atrial fibrillation is thought to be caused by molecules damaging heart tissue. The flavanols in chocolate can stop inflammation that leads to tissue damage. "As part of a healthy diet, moderate intake of chocolate is a healthy snack choice," Reuters quotes the study's lead author as saying. Though it's important to choose chocolate with a higher cocoa content. (And you should probably also take it easy on the ibuprofen.)