Chocolate: Good For The Heart - Bad for Bones?

Just in time for Valentine's Day comes the news we do not want to hear: While chocolate may be good for your heart, it may not be so good for your bones.

Yes, it seems just when we were getting comfortable reaching for those York Peppermint Patties and Dove bars, science pulled another "GOTCHA!"

In studies published this month in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition a group of British researchers found that women who ate chocolate every day had a lower bone density than those who ate it once a week.

And if you're thinking you'll just have milk with all those chocolate cookies and load up on calcium ? Well, sorry, no. The study, which also included calcium supplementation, found it didn't influence the rate of bone loss linked to the chocolate consumption.

The reseach included some 1,000 women who were randomly assigned to take either oral calcium supplements or a matched placebo for a period of several weeks. During this time they were also asked to keep a journal of how much chocolate- or cocoa-based drinks - they consumed.

At the conclusion of the study researchers measured bone density - and found the women who ate less chocolate ( once weekly or less) had a higher bone density by at least 3 percent, then the women who ate chocolate every day. Moreover, they found that taking calcium supplements didn't impact the result.

What's behind the finding? Doctors say that while chocolate contains flavenols - a chemical that's heart-healthy, and contains some amount of calcium - good for the bones - it also contains oxalate, a chemical that blocks calcium from being absorbed in bone. And, the sweeter the chocolate, the more sugar it contains - and sugar has also been linked to an increase in calcium excretion.

What does this mean for you ? Eat chocolate in moderation - and the purer the chocolate, and the less sugar it contains ( think dark or semi-sweet, not milk chocolate) the less likely you are to do harm to your bones, and still help your heart.

Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition - January 2008 - J. M. Hodgson, author.