Too often when talking about healthy living, we have to give up on the food and things we love the most.
So I love it when new studies come out proving the most delicious things to be healthy.
A new study published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry reveals a specific, delicious candy that can significantly fight type 2 diabetes.
…even if your diet is not so healthy!
They discovered that a compound that naturally occurs in cocoa can fight off type 2 diabetes.
The researchers extracted cells from rats and injected them with various flavanol compounds derived from cocoa.
While the cells injected with a complete cocoa extract and with oligomeric or polymeric procyanidin-rich extract showed no improvement in function, those treated with a monomeric catechin-rich extract immediately started producing more insulin.
To verify their findings, they fed this monomeric catechin compound to rats on a high-fat diet and compared them with rats not given this substance.
The treated rats had lower blood sugar levels and were less obese than the untreated ones… despite the bad diet.
There are a few problems with simply eating cocoa, however.
1. When they used a complete cocoa extract, it failed to work, which probably means that the amount required to stimulate your beta cells is higher than you can obtain when eating cocoa or cocoa chocolate. It was only one component of cocoa (monomeric catechin) that improved diabetes.
2. Cocoa is bitter and normally becomes appetizing only once you mix it with a lot of sugar. Sugar obviously increases blood sugar and compromises insulin secretion the most, which is then completely self-defeating for a diabetic to consume.
So, if you’re going to consume cocoa, try to get very dark (preferable over 90%) chocolate.
Then, combine that chocolate with other foods high in monomeric catechin, such as green tea, apples, pears, red wine, guavas, blackberries, raspberries, and cherries.