Chocolate is something most of us enjoy and many refer to it as a guilty pleasure, but with good knowledge, you will know about its health benefits.

Now hold on, don’t go crazy and peel off that sugary sweet cover and go nuts on milk chocolate, the truth of the matter is that DARK chocolate is the one full of health benefits, so don’t go crazy just yet. As always over consumption is easy to do but in small and regulated amounts, it can do wonders for you.

Dark chocolate the antioxidant champion – Let’s start off with something we all pretty much know. Yes, its health benefits are closely tied with how much antioxidant is in each bite. Antioxidants are known to protect the body and help avoid a ton of harmful molecules that can really do a number on your body. So don’t feel bad when you have a mouthful of dark chocolate, the health benefits are just starting with each scrumptious bite.

Increase blood flow – Dark chocolate is known to have quite a bit of nitric oxide, which can lower the resistance of blood flow, which in turn reduces blood pressure, so consumption of these delicious treats have that added health benefits aside from sating your sweet tooth.

Increase HDL levels and lower LDL – Now let me break it down real quick before you Google the abbreviations I just mentioned, it stands for high and low density lipoprotein and HDL is the one that helps your body with health benefits while the LDL is something you really want to avoid. Well HDL helps the body but what you really want is to remove the LDL too as it often works with radicals in your body to cause a number of problems. So enjoy the dark chocolate knowing that you can get a foot up with a ton of health benefits.

Dark chocolates are the best ones.

Better cardiovascular resistance – Given that one of the health benefits is lowering LDL will help you fight off a number of cardiovascular diseases that no one in their right mind will want to worry about anyways. So as one of the ideal health benefits, you’ll be happy to know that this is one of the more important benefits listed for dark chocolate.

Better skin – Looking for better skin? Then take a helping of dark chocolate. Studies have shown that the dark ones have some pretty great skin health benefits, by protecting it from sun damage. So assuming you will be hitting the beach perhaps it is time to snack on a little dark chocolate to avoid skin damage.

Become smarter – Well this hasn’t been proven just yet… but the studies are in progress and so far results have shown that participants who consumed some dark chocolate showed signs of better brain functions. The studies are continuing but moving forward if they do find that dark chocolate does help brain functions, you’ll want to make sure these are among the benefits that you get while getting your chocolate on.

And there we have it, some pretty awesome health benefits of dark chocolate, again mind the consumption but over all I think you should know how much to have every now and again. While the se health benefits are great, remember that each serving still comes with sugar, so don’t feel guilty with each bite but be mindful nonetheless. Stay healthy!