Mas beneficios del chocolate

Dark Chocolate Helps Lower Blood Pressure in Liver Patients
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By Michelle Fay Cortez and Naomi Kresge

April 15 (Bloomberg) -- Dark chocolate may be just what the doctor ordered for patients with damaged livers.

A Spanish study found chocolate can help lower blood pressure in the liver and reduce damage to blood vessels in people with cirrhosis, a potentially fatal scarring of the liver that can lead to organ failure and cancer. Only antioxidant-rich dark chocolate is helpful, researchers said in a study presented today at the International Liver Conference in Vienna.

Doctors compared white with dark chocolate as part of liquid meals given to a group of 21 patients with end-stage liver disease. They recorded a much smaller increase in blood pressure after meals for the group that ate dark chocolate. Cocoa is packed with flavonoids, plant pigments that act as potent antioxidants, which are credited in other studies with improving circulation in obese people and warding off heart disease in smokers.

The findings aren't a license to indulge, especially in candies that are high in sugar, said Heiner Wedemeyer, secretary general of the European Association for the Study of the Liver, which hosts the meeting. The researchers used chocolate that was 85 percent cocoa.

"Sugar is not good for the liver," he said. "You have to get the good-quality chocolate."

The link between eating dark chocolate and blood pressure in the liver is clear in the study, said Mark Thursz, professor of hepatology at Imperial College London and EASL vice- secretary.

Alternative Sources

"It's important to explore the potential of alternative sources which can contribute to the overall wellbeing of a patient," Thursz said in a statement.

Ruptured blood vessels after eating are a risk for liver cirrhosis patients, whose damaged veins and arteries must cope with blood-pressure spikes after eating on top of existing hypertension in the liver and elsewhere in their bodies, the researchers said.

Some 20 percent of heavy drinkers develop alcoholic cirrhosis, the final stage of alcoholic liver disease, according to EASL. The damage can't be reversed, though stopping drinking can prevent the condition from worsening, the association said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Fay Cortez in Vienna at mcortez@bloomberg.net; Naomi Kresge in Vienna at nkresge@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: April 15, 2010 11:00 EDT