Tag: high blood pressure

Exercise as the Savior to Chronic Health Problems?

CEO Greg Glassman, CrossFit, started in 2000

CEO Greg Glassman, CrossFit, started in 2000

Sometimes you need to recognize that a system is broken and not as helpful as our expectations. The Western medical system is one such system. Yes, we are living longer, with viruses and bacteria largely at bay. As we progress to better health, chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, heart failure, diabetes and obesity have become much more prevalent. These chronic diseases show little abatement with current guidelines. “Lose weight, reduce salt intake, exercise more” may be medically valid advice, but the words are much easier to say and harder to implement.

Dark Chocolate and Blood Pressure Reductions

Diet and exercise are the general non-medicinal recommendations to reduce blood pressure. This makes some sense, in general, for overall health improvements. A German study has concluded that low amounts of daily consumption of dark chocolate can have a marginal but still significant outcome in reducing blood pressure.

Dr. Dirk Taubert, of the University Hospital of Cologne, published his findings in JAMA.

Here’s the recipe: Eat 6.3g of dark chocolate (min 70% cocoa) daily, 2 hrs after your last meal, and within 18 weeks reductions of 3mm hg systolic and 2mm hg
diastolic blood pressure can be observed.