Chocolate addiction leads to sweet discovery

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - They were so addicted, they just could not give up their favorite daily snack -- not even in the interest of science.

But chocolate lovers who flunked out of a Johns Hopkins University study on aspirin and heart disease helped researchers stumble on an explanation of why a little chocolate a day can cut the risk of heart attack.

It turns out chocolate, like aspirin, affects the platelets that cause blood to clot, Diane Becker of the Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine and her colleagues discovered.

"What these chocolate offenders taught us is that the chemical in cocoa beans has a biochemical effect similar to aspirin in reducing platelet clumping, which can be fatal if a clot forms and blocks a blood vessel, causing a heart attack," Becker said in a telephone interview.

The 139 so-called chocolate offenders took part in a larger study of 1,200 people with a family history of heart disease. The study looked at the effects of aspirin on blood platelets.

link to full article