Cocoa shows promise as next wonder drug

A big problem facing Americans and Europeans is the dangerous rise in blood pressure with age, increasing their risk of heart disease and diabetes. Kuna Indians living off the Caribbean coast of Panama don't have that problem. Norman Hollenberg, a professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School, is convinced that it's because they drink more than five cups of cocoa a day.

Hollenberg believes cocoa may also be the answer to other serious problems. "Several studies have shown that a decrease in blood flow to the brain is tied to both dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, and stroke," he notes. "Increasing evidence points to heavy intake of certain types of cocoa as an easy, inexpensive way to increase blood to the brain and, thus, to play a role in reducing the risk of those devastating diseases."

Don't run to the beverage section of your local market right away, however. Hollenberg's and his colleagues' experiments dealt with natural cocoa, not varieties that have undergone extensive processing to suit consumer tastes. The natural stuff is chock-full of ingredients called flavanols, antioxidant compounds found in cocoa beans. Getting cocoa out of nature and into a box on a shelf removes much of the flavanols.

Mars Inc., the candy company, is trying to close the gap with a flavanol-rich cocoa called Cocoapro. Tests to date have found that the equivalent of four cups of this cocoa dramatically increased blood flow to the arms and fingers of people after only four days. Hollenberg maintains that such an increase can help people fighting diseases ranging from high blood pressure, hardening of arteries, and stroke to diabetes, vascular dementia, and preeclampsia, a serious condition that affects pregnant women.