Dark Chocolate With Extra Virgin Olive Oil Improves Cardiovascular Risk Profile

The results of a new study car­ried out by researchers from the University of Pisa showed that dark choco­late enriched with extra vir­gin olive oil improved car­dio­vas­cu­lar risk pro­file in par­tic­i­pants.

The study was pre­sented at the ESC Congress in Barcelona ear­lier this week by lead researcher and car­di­ol­o­gist, Rossella Di Stefano who told atten­dees, ​“We found that small daily por­tions of dark choco­late with added nat­ural polyphe­nols from extra vir­gin olive oil was asso­ci­ated with an improved car­dio­vas­cu­lar risk pro­file. Our study sug­gests that extra vir­gin olive oil might be a good food addi­tive to help pre­serve our ​‘repair­ing cells’, the EPC.”

The study com­pared the effects of dark choco­late sup­ple­mented with Italian Panaia red apple against dark choco­late enriched with EVOO on ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis (hard­en­ing of the arter­ies) pro­gres­sion in healthy vol­un­teers with car­dio­vas­cu­lar risk fac­tors.

The results showed that the EVOO and choco­late com­bi­na­tion was more effec­tive in improv­ing car­dio­vas­cu­lar risk pro­file than the red apple com­bi­na­tion. The olive oil enhanced choco­late boosted ​‘good’ cho­les­terol lev­els, low­ered high blood pres­sure and sig­nif­i­cantly raised endothe­lial prog­en­i­tor cell (EPC) lev­els which are vital for blood ves­sel func­tion and repair.

During the 28-day trial, the vol­un­teers were given a daily 40-gram sam­ple of dark choco­late. For 14 con­sec­u­tive days the choco­late was enriched with 10 per­cent EVOO and on the other 14 days, the choco­late con­tained 2.5 per­cent Panaia red apple.

The study was car­ried out on 26 vol­un­teers made up of 14 men and 12 women, all of whom had at least three car­dio­vas­cu­lar risk fac­tors which ranged from smok­ing, dys­lipi­demia (an abnor­mal amount of lipids in the blood), high blood pres­sure or a fam­ily his­tory of car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease.

The vol­un­teers smok­ing sta­tus, body mass index, blood pres­sure, glycemia and lipid pro­file were also mon­i­tored dur­ing the study.

At the end of the trial, the researchers con­cluded that the olive oil enriched choco­late had sub­stan­tially increased EPC lev­els and high-den­sity lipopro­tein (good cho­les­terol) and low­ered blood pres­sure in vol­un­teers.

The sub­jects also showed reduced signs of ath­er­o­scle­ro­sis pro­gres­sion. The apple enriched choco­late merely led to an insignif­i­cant decrease in triglyc­eride lev­els and no crit­i­cal health changes.

Olive oil choco­late first made the head­lines in 2,000 when French choco­latier L’Espérantine de Marseille’s olive oil choco­late won the cov­eted Cordon Bleu award at the INTERSUC con­fer­ence in Paris. A num­ber of choco­late man­u­fac­tur­ers have fol­lowed suit and gone on to launch olive oil choco­late.

Earlier this year, chef Thomas Keller and Italian olive oil pro­ducer, Armando Manni launched K+M Extravirgin Chocolate. The duo spent five years on research and devel­op­ment before per­fect­ing their recipe for an olive oil choco­late that would be good for the body and soul.

Armando Manni, co-founder of K+M Extravirgin Chocolate told Olive Oil Times, ​“This excit­ing clin­i­cal trial is very promis­ing and aligns with the goals that we have always had when devel­op­ing our K+M Extravirgin Chocolate.” Manni added, ​“We are now begin­ning to see other peo­ple in the indus­try sup­port­ing what we have always believed in.”

“We know that K+M Extravirgin Chocolate has health ben­e­fits because the method­ol­ogy of our choco­late pro­duc­tion main­tains a higher amount of the antiox­i­dants flavonoids than tra­di­tional choco­late and the addi­tion of a small amount of Manni organic extra-vir­gin olive oil, con­tain­ing a very high quan­tity of antiox­i­dants polyphe­nols, it works as a booster of the antiox­i­dants.”

• ESC Press Office


• Olive Oil Times