No matter how much you are a fitness freak with the diet and physical training, you will definitely keep a cheat day to satiate your taste buds. This helps you to maintain a healthy diet and keeps you motivated towards your objective. So dark chocolate can be your best companion on your cheat meal day.
What is dark chocolate?
Dark chocolate derives from cocoa trees and is full of bioactive elements that are beneficial in improving your health condition. This is a fermented and dried seed of the fruit combined with cocoa butter, sugar, and cocoa liquor. The presence of cocoa liquor makes this chocolate darker. This is a paste form created with roasted and ground cocoa beans that are indicated as “ nibs”. This is considered dark and it consists of 35% by weight of cocoa liquor.
It is considered the best source of fat in stearic acid. The lipid named anandamide is a chemical messenger that works on the brain to give a joyful feeling. This is considered a ‘bliss chemical”.
This food is a great source of minerals. People may find dark chocolate a good source of copper, iron, magnesium calcium, zinc, potassium, and sulfur. All of these play an important role to mitigate the risk of artery disease and hypertension. If you are searching for fibre loaded ingredients, then dark chocolate can be the solution. Apart from this, dark chocolate is a good source of several vitamins such as B1, B2, B5, B3, B3, and E.
The plant-based natural food substance cocoa is rich in flavonoid elements. This element is bitter in its taste but it makes a good impact on overall health. The main element flavonoids found in this food are catechin and epicatechin. In addition, dark chocolate is full of powerful micronutrients named polyphenols.
Why is dark chocolate beneficial for human health?
Dark chocolate offers several health benefits to human beings. Here’s how.
• Dark chocolate acts to uplift mood through enhancing a chemical in the human body named “anandamide”. You will find lipids in cacao. This plays an important role in reducing stress and making your mood better.
• Dark chocolate is very much fruitful in cardiovascular function. This chocolate reduces blood pressure, improves blood circulation, LDL cholesterol, and most importantly this aids in mitigating plaque creation on artery walls.
• Dark chocolate enhances brain function. It is thought that the nutrients present in dark chocolate help to do some challenging jobs every day.
• Dark chocolate is highly concentrated with glucose, calories, and carbohydrates. The presence of these elements at a higher level gives people a lot of energy. According to experts, dark chocolate helps in expanding blood vessels.
• It is surprisingly true that dark chocolate increases the level of testosterone.
How is it responsible for increasing the level of testosterone?
Dark chocolate aids to control the level of blood sugar, reducing bad cholesterol, and alleviating the risk of cardiovascular issues. All of these are liable for reducing the level of testosterone. The cacao present in this dark chocolate is full of healthy fats which boosts the level of testosterone. Men can increase the level of testosterone by consuming healthy fats in the most underutilized and underrated way.
Testes are liable for testosterone production in the human body. One of the biggest causes for the low level of this hormone is enhanced oxidation in the testes which impedes this hormone production in the body. The antioxidant Flavonoids decrease oxidative stress on the organs. This stimulates the testicular function and produces sex hormones largely. Additionally, as per the study it is seen that flavanol consisting of cocoa improves the level of plasma nitric oxide concentration.
Flavonoids present in cacao are responsible for enhancing the bioavailability of nitric oxide. The higher levels of NO gas are directly related to a high level of testosterone level, firm penetration, and a good cardiovascular system. The flavonoid comprising dark chocolate helps in decreasing cortisol. In this way it ultimately leads to reduced anxiety. Cortisol negatively affects the level of testosterone.
So when the level of cortisol increases, the level of male hormone decreases automatically. According to studies and research, the flavonoid containing rich chocolate directly affects the adrenal gland to reduce the stress hormone. According to research, if people consume 40mg of dark chocolate for up to 2 weeks, it helps in reducing cortisol largely. Apart from this another stress hormone named catecholamines also gets reduced significantly.
Another study shows that when a man is given 50g of 72% dark chocolate consisting of 125mg epicatechin, the stress hormone responds at a lower level. When someone is stressed out for the long term, apart from the stress hormone cortisol, adrenaline, norepinephrine also get released. The consistent release of these hormones may prove detrimental for bodily procedures normally.
In a stressful situation, the body is much more inclined to survive over the reproductive objective. For this reason, the concentration of testosterone level gets decreased and that leads to testosterone deficiency. Dark chocolate is strongly related to anxiety and stress. Once the level of cortisol gets reduced in the bloodstream, the body will automatically start to generate this sex hormone.
The presence of several minerals like zinc, magnesium helps in regulating the testosterone hormone. According to research, 100gm of dark chocolate contains 6.8mg zinc. The published report claims that zinc not only helps to boost the level of this sex hormone but also improves luteinizing hormone. This hormone is the main regulator in producing testosterone levels.
Similarly, magnesium helps in improving the level of testosterone level. According to a study, intake of 10mg of magnesium per kg of body weight regularly for 28 days improves the level of this sex hormone, testosterone.
Conclusion
Men cannot eat dark chocolate as much they want to regulate this sex hormone. Dark chocolate is full of high-fat content and for this people have to eat this sweet treat carefully.