Here we go again. Another day, another phony study about the fabulous beneficial effects of eating chocolate. The study is so ridiculous I don’t even know where to begin. If you haven’t read my post on the dangers of chocolate I recommend you do it first to get a bit of background.
Today’s pseudo study claims that a small square of dark chocolate daily protects the heart from inflammation and subsequent heart disease. Specifically, they brainwash us to eat 6.7 grams of chocolate per day (or 0.23 ounces), or a Hershey’s dark chocolate bar a week…
Suitable Control Group
They did the study on almost 5,000 people with NO CARDIOVASCULAR RISK FACTORS WHATSOEVER! That means these individuals had low cholesterol, low blood pressure, no diabetes, were young, consumed low alcohol levels, were not obese, were physically active, they had no family history of premature coronary heart disease, did not belong to a higher risk ethnicity… Just the opposite to the “control group” most affected by reading the publication of the study: the chocoholic heart-diseased. Is it conniving enough for you?
By the way, they took the milk out of the study because it interferes with chocolate’s polyphenols, never mind that at the end they recommend a low-flavonoid, high-sugar, dairy-laden Hershey’s bar a week…
Based on the fact that high amounts of antioxidant flavonoids and polyphenols have beneficial effects on inflammatory conditions, the study went to measure a protein in the blood called C-reactive, which is an inflammation marker, to see if it was high or low. A couple of questions and a couple of data, and “voilà!”, you got yourself a study.
Apparently, these fabulous researches also took into account that the healthy individuals in the study might consume healthy food too, like fruits and vegetables. Or they might exercise more than other people do. So they acknowledged that the lower inflammation might be attributed to other factors aside from dark chocolate [sic]… Rest assured though, these researches made the necessary “adjustments” to make sure the chocolate did what it was supposed to do: lower the C-reactive protein. How they did the adjustments? Who knows? The study surely doesn’t say. The researches can only tell us that they believe that the beneficial effects of chocolate are real. How about that? Is it scientific enough for you?
Human Laboratory
This Machiavellian study was supervised by Licia Iacoviello, head of the Laboratory of Genetic and Environmental Epidemiology at the Catholic University of Campobasso and responsible for the Moli-sani Project, in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute of Milan! The Moli-sani Project is funded by Pfizer, the biggest selling pharmaceutical corporation in the world. Pfizer has been involved in many pharmaceutical scandals, like the illegal use of the experimental antibiotic drug called trovafloxacinto to treat a 1996 meningitis outbreak in Nigeria’s Kano district. The Nigerian government claims that 196 children died as a result of taking the drug and 37 surviving children suffered various health problems including deafness and muteness, paralysis, brain damage, loss of sight and slurred speech. The Nigerian government sued Pfizer for US$7 billion in compensation for the damages.
Now the Pfizer-funded Moli-sani study (which means Moli-healthy), with the help of local MDs, is turning the whole Italian region of Molise into a large scientific laboratory, making crafty studies like the one of the chocolate. Whether they like it or not, people living in that beautiful area are part of the study. The local media says that the simple fact of participating in the Moli-sani project would allow local citizens, even the ones that are super healthy, to know their own state of health in order to plan, along with their doctors, the appropiate prevention…
… Personally, if I was living there, I would not be able to sleep at night.
Corporate Cash
Who can blame Pfizer, anyways? If I was one of their CEOs I’d make sure people getting my products would not feel guilty at all. For many years Phillip Morris took the guilt out of smoking cigarettes, and Exxon-Mobil encourages us to keep burning oil without guilt.
You should know that M & M Mars Inc. has spent the last 18 years funding research on the nutritional and medical potential of cocoa’s naturally occurring flavonoids. Just in the University of California Davis, M & M Mars Inc has funded 20 investigators with $10 million on research since 1997 and created a chair in the nutrition department.
Only one of the scientists among the international panel presenting at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in the 2007 session titled “The Neurobiology of Chocolate: A Mind-Altering Experience?”, was not sponsored by Mars Incorporated. One of the panel’s organizers was Harold Schmitz, a professor at UC Davis and the Chief Science Officer of M & M Mars, Inc.
During the presentation, these “unbiased” scientists described how Kuna Indians in Panama have almost no diabetes yet consume chocolate every day. They forgot to mention that when these Kuna Indians move from the fabulous San Blas Islands north of Panama, settle in the cities, and drink the same amount of cocoa as we drink, their levels of good health go down the drain… just like the rest of us.
Strange Bedfellows
Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest co-authored a paper called Relationship between Funding Source and Conclusion among Nutrition-Related Scientific Articles which concludes that studies funded by industry were four to eight times as likely to reach conclusions in the financial interests of sponsors.
Do you think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that Pfizer and Hershey’s are in bed together making this new dazzling chocolate allegation? Then you’d like to know that effective August 29, 2008, David L. Shedlarz, former Vice Chairman of Pfizer Inc. was elected to The Hershey Company’s Board of Directors. How about that?
A Case Supporting Chocolate Guilt
Before you absolve yourself every time you sink your teeth on chocolate thinking that it’s good four you because you read it on a million magazines and a million posts, you should know a couple of other studies that I can assure you have not been funded by Pfizer or Hershey’s:
- A study conducted in Utah between 1983 and 1986, and published in 1993, showed an association between theobromine (the bitter alkaloid of the cocoa bean) and an increased risk of prostate cancer in older men.
- Switzerland, the country that consumes more chocolate in the world, has the highest prostate cancer mortality rate in the world (20.3 per 100,000, world standard), about 30% higher than in the United States.
Nobody has connected the dots so far, at least in public. Maybe that’s why this study recommends just a meager 6.7 grams of chocolate “flavored” candy per day, or about a Hershey’s Kiss and a half a day (mind the dairy), which probably contains an even smaller quantity of pure cocoa bean powder.
As a matter of fact, in fall 2007, Hershey changed their milk chocolate recipe by adding lactose, milk fat, and the food additive PGPR, a substitute of cocoa butter. The Chocolate Manufacturers Association, whose members include Hershey, Nestlé, and Archer Daniels Midland, began to lobby the FDA to change the legal definition of chocolate to let them substitute partially hydrogenated vegetable oils for cocoa butter as well as artificial sweeteners and milk substitutes. Currently, the FDA does not allow a product to be referred to as “chocolate” if the product contains any of these ingredients. How healthy does this sound to you?
Do you Want Some Child Slavery with that Chocolate?
Not enough guilt? So then take this: Hershey and a number of other chocolate manufacturers, such as Mars and Nestle, source cocoa beans from African nations that are known to use child labor. The State Department’s year 2000 human rights report concluded that some 15,000 children between the ages of 9 and 12 from the poor undeveloped countries of Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin and Togo have been sold into forced labor on the northern Ivory Coast cocoa plantations in recent years.
Furthermore, these chocolate companies lobby against United States legislation requiring “’slave free’ labels on their products.” So unless you see a fair trade label, the chocolate you eat most likely has been picked up by a boy taken away from his house against his will and sold for US$30 as forced labor to a cocoa plantation. He was held forcibly on a cocoa farm, where those who attempt to escape are beaten. He was overworked till becoming sick, or dying.
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Active healthy people eating healthy diets with no cardiovascular risk factors gobbling the equivalent to a Hershey’s Kiss and half a day… Kudos to Psizer, Hershey’s, and the Research Laboratories of the Center for High Technology Research and Education in Biomedical Sciences “John Paul II” at the Catholic University in Campobasso, Milan: that’s what I call a scientific independent study!
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Suggested Reading:
- Sorry Snickers – Half A Bar Of Hershey’s Chocolate Per Week Lowers Risk Of Heart Disease
- Who Funds The Chocolate Consensus?
- Chocolate Helps Heart Stay Healthy
- Dark chocolate: Half a bar per week to keep at bay the risk of heart attack
- Former Vice Chairman of Pfizer Inc. David L. Shedlarz Elected to The Hershey Company’s Board of Directors
- Some Types Of Cocoa Could Improve Brain Function
- The Kuna Indians of Panama with Magical Elixir: Cocoa
- Chocolate and slavery
