Don't Stress Out Over Having That Piece of Chocolate

As long as the good news continues to pour in on the health benefits of red wine, dark chocolate and the like, you better believe that I'm going to continue to share it with Tonic readers. Pardon me while I set my glass of pinot noir and morsel of 71 percent cocoa to the side so I can concentrate fully on the latest, tastiest news about chocolate.

Just a few days ago, we wrote of the news that hit regarding the protection from ultraviolet radiation damage that consuming dark chocolate may offer. Now, according to Live Science, dark chocolate may also serve as a stress reducer. This comes on top of what we've been learning over the years about the benefits dark chocolate may bring to the heart, to blood pressure and to cholesterol levels.

Don't you feel more relaxed already just knowing that?

The study was performed by the Nestle Research Center in Switzerland and focused on a test subject population of self-reported stress cases. After two weeks of consuming 40 grams of dark chocolate daily, the test subjects blood and urine samples revealed a significant decrease in the stress hormones present in their systems.

The Nestle team's findings were recently published in the Journal of Proteome Research, and as Live Science reports, the paper states that "daily consumption of dark chocolate resulted in a significant modification of the metabolism of healthy and free living human volunteers with potential long-term consequences on human health within only 2 weeks treatment. This was observable through the reduction of levels of stress-associated hormones and normalization of the systemic stress metabolic signatures."

Photo courtesy of John Loo, via Flickr