There’s much more to
cocoa than the role it plays in cooking. Researchers now believe it can
help prevent obesity. In fact, scientists in Kanagawa, Japan claim,
“Ingested cocoa can prevent high-fat diet-induced obesity” by
regulating lipid metabolism in the body, “especially by decreasing
fatty acid synthesis and transport systems and enhancement of part of
the thermogenesis mechanism in liver and white adipose (fatty) tissue.”
In their most recent study, researchers fed a high-fat diet to two
groups of rats. One group was supplemented with real cocoa, the other
was fed an artificial cocoa. On the 21st day of the study, body
weights,
fatty tissue weights and concentrations of serum triacylglycerol were
measured. Researchers found that final body weights and fatty tissue
weights were significantly lower in rats fed the real cocoa than in
those fed the fake cocoa. Serum triacylglycerol concentrations also
tended to be lower in rats fed the real cocoa diet.
Nutrition 21(5):594-601, 2005