Chocolate Pills May Stop Heart Attacks And Strokes

Forget Snickers and Mars bars, there is a chocolate pill in testing right now that could save our collective lives from heart attacks and strokes. Unfortunately, the amount of nutrients you get from one pill, you’d literally have to eat a “gazillion” candy bars so don’t try this at home.

The study aims to monitor if cocoa flavanols, what’s left behind once chocolate is stripped of it’s sugar and fat, improves blood pressure, cholesterol, the body’s use of insulin, artery health and other heart-related issues, reports AP.

The study will be sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and Mars Inc., maker of M&M’s and Snickers bars. The candy company has patented a way to extract flavanols from cocoa in high concentration and put them in capsules. Mars and some other companies sell cocoa extract capsules, but with less active ingredient than those that will be tested in the study; candy contains even less.

Participants will receive either two cocoa flavanols capsules or two dummy pills every day for four years and no one will know who’s taking what — except some faceless data machine, I assume, you know, in the name of science.

Unfortunately, while these delicious-sounding pills may stave off heart attacks and strokes, they…don’t taste like chocolate. So, wait, what are we talking about again?