Looking for an excuse to tear into that gift box of yummy chocolates? Try the old longevity gambit. Some doctors now say munching on chocolate can help you live longer.
Research at the Harvard School of Public Health found that men who ate chocolate regularly from about the age of 65 lived nearly a year longer than those who declined the sweets. The test subjects were studied for a period of five years by Dr. I-Min Lee and Ralph Paffenburger.
In their results published in the British Medical Journal, the two said that death rates were lowest among those eating chocolate and other sweets one to three times a month, but highest among those who abstained. Even taking into account other factors such as smoking, they added, the results were the same.
Experts suggest that any such health benefits from chocolate may be due to chemicals called phenols found in the sweet morsels. Phenols are powerful antioxidants that sponge up harmful free radicals that are known to damage cells and have been linked to a wide variety of diseases.
