Chalk Another One Up for Chocolate: UV Protection

There's a shelf in my kitchen for some very special foods and ingredients. We have garlic, red wine, green tea, ginger and dark chocolate. All are long loved and used, and have recently been better understood for the myriad health benefits and protections that they are capable of offering us.

In the case of chocolate, as PhysOrg reminds us (and to be clear, we're talking about high cocoa content dark chocolate), the health payoffs form a long list, including anti-clotting, pain response reduction, protection against some forms of cancer, cardiovascular health improvements and even brain-boosting.

A study recently performed in London suggests that protection from the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation may be among dark chocolate's beneficial attributes.

Test subjects who were given chocolate with high levels of flavonols (the compounds found in chocolate, red wine and green tea which are increasingly understood to do all sorts of terrific, helpful things) appeared to be more resistant to UV light, suggesting that high flavonol chocolate may offer the skin extra protection against sun damage and the simple visible signs of aging.

Photo courtesy of Mehmet Karatay, via Wikimedia Commons