Cocoa Drops Heart Disease by 38 Percent and Stroke by 29 Percent

The Kuna Indians living on islands of the coast of Panama have among the lowest rates of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke found anywhere in the world. This is how they do it. They harvest cocoa pods off cocoa trees,and then ferment and dry the seeds. The ground seeds are then put in a pot of boiling water with bananas which provide sweetening. They drink four to five cups of this cocoa a day.

In the January 24th Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences at the Coca Symposium, Norman K. Hollenberg reviewed data he's gleaned from studying two genetically similar populations of Kuna Indians, people renowned for their cocoa consumption. One group of the Kuna lives on the San Blas Islands off Panama. The other consists of migrants residing on the mainland in Panama City.

In an earlier work, Hollenberg reported that the island dwelling Kuna had significantly lower blood pressue than their mainland kin did. One difference between the populations: The islanders drank an average of 5 cups of cocoa daily, but the mainland group downed fewer than 4 cups per week.

Schmitz notes that the two populations also drank different cocoas. Traditionally, island dwelling Kuna take fresh picked cocoas beans and dry them under the sun. Then, they grind the beans into a powder for use in foods and drinks. "Effectively," he says, "they're consuming about as close to fresh cocoa as one can get." By contrast, the islanders' mainland kin now tend to drink commercial cocoas that have been as heavily processed as U.S. cocoas. The products also retain as little of the starting flavanols as most U.S. products do.

At the Cocoa Symposium, Hollenberg reported that dramatic long term benefits may be attributable to the islanders' cocoa habit: Their death rate from heart disease is less than 8 percent of that in Kuna mainlanders, and cancer kills only 16 percent as many islanders. The two populations were matched for age, weight, and a number of other factors that might affect heart and cancer risks.

Hollenberg concludes that the Kuna epidemiological daqta, although preliminary, "indicate that a flavanol rich diet may provide an extraordinary benefit in the reduction of the two deadliest diseases in today's world.

One of the most important flavonoids in cocoa seems to be epicatechin. Several U.S. food companies have products that contain high levels of epicatechin. One can also buy raw cocoa beans. Just Google the words, raw cocoa beans, and you can see a number of companies that sell the beans.