This is a good day in medical research: According to a just-published paper by researchers at the University of California in San Diego, people who ate more chocolate than average weighed less than others who exercised the same and ate the same number of calories, but less chocolate.
Calories are not all equal, according to the research. Even better, it seems that chocolate calories are better than other calories.
The results come from a survey of over 1000 people, age range of 20s-80s, who were generally healthy (no diabetes, heart disease, etc.). Participants were asked about their food intake and had their BMI (body mass index) measured.
The average times people in the survey ate chocolate was 2x a week. Those who ate chocolate more often were more likely to have a lower BMI than those who ate it less often, even though they exercised the same amount and ate the same amount of calories.
Results showed that participants who ate chocolate five times a week weighed 5-7 pounds less than those of equal height who didn’t eat any chocolate.
Details of the research includes various caveats, such as that the food survey was self-reported and did not include amounts of chocolate eaten, only frequency. But when someone is announcing that chocolate calories have magic slimming powers, who cares about the details?
