Will chocolate pills (Cocoa Extract) be the next health craze in the future?

Side Note:  This post is about 10 months old, as I recently moved it to this Health & Fitness Blog from another location/website.  Anyway...

In today's 'health supplement' market, you never know which supplement will really hit the floor running until after the commercial hype turns into a trending craze. In the past, one of the biggest pills to take the market by storm was the fish oil supplements. Like fish oil, these chocolate pills are also going to be aimed at cardiovascular and heart health. Numerous studies are underway, of course, so expect to see these cocoa extracts and/or chocolate pills explode in the coming years.

"The study will be the first large test of cocoa flavanols, which in previous smaller studies improved blood pressure, cholesterol, the body's use of insulin, artery health and other heart-related factors." Read more about the potential use of chocolate pills, here: news.msn.com/science-technology/study-to-test-chocolate-pills-for-heart-health [URL is no longer valid]

Personally, I'm not that impressed that they found a way to extract the goodness of chocolate into a mega dose and/or high-concentration pill form. Like most of y'all, I also already knew that chocolate was good for you; duh! Dark chocolate has the most health benefits, of course, but I'd much rather have it in the candy bar/brownie format; ha!

What I'm leery about is this "mega-dose" craze. Many studies of the past have shown that basically mega anything either has no additional benefits or, in some cases, causes more harm than good. For example, a lot of people now think that extremely high doses of antioxidants that you'd find in certain supplements actually raises your risk for cancer and/or causes it. As always, moderation wins again. The bottom line is, unless they find chocolate (cocoa extract) pills to be a good drug-replacement therapy for heart patients (or something along those lines), it will be nothing more than marketing hype. Simply eating dark chocolate on a regular basis should provide all the health benefits from this substance your body needs without expensive chocolate pills.

Update (3/27/2022): Well, it has been nearly 7 years since I posted this, and today I stumbled upon yet another article about this potential chocolate supplement craze. Just to give a quick quote from a post on msn.com: "In the study, published earlier this month in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers examined more than 20,000 U.S. adults ages 60 and up, following up after several years, supplementing some participants' diets with cocoa extract. Those who received the supplement were significantly less likely to die of cardiovascular disease. "We found that cocoa flavanol supplementation may reduce clinical cardiovascular events, including a statistically significant 27% reduction in cardiovascular disease death," study author Howard D. Sesso, ScD, MPH, says." https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/nutrition/the-surprising-effect-of-eating-chocolate-new-study-suggests/ [link is no longer active]

Anyway, the point of this update is to show that after all of these years, it is STILL in the works and/or being studied, talked about, etc. I originally spoke about the potential for chocolate pills becoming the next health craze in the future, albeit the concepts never made very much sense to me. I mean, why not just eat it, instead? Nearly everybody likes chocolate! Okay, the sugar... Yeah, but no! Ha! Yeah, milk chocolate isn't as healthy, but most people think it tastes way better than dark chocolate. However, since dark chocolate is mainly recognized for having the most health benefits as opposed to the more commonly consumed milk chocolate, I suppose they will eventually meet in the middle and start promoting a Cocoa Extract via supplements (pills). In my opinion, though, that is a waste of chocolate. Plus, isn't chocolate rumored to possibly go extinct in a few decades? I hope not! Either way, some things are just better consumed the natural way as opposed to extracts, supplements, etc. 

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Update #2 (12-7-2024): Wow! I just checked Amazon.com, and they currently have this stuff. The product description is as follows: "CocoaVia - Cardio Health Supplement, 30 Day, 500mg Cocoa Flavanols, Support Heart Health, Boost Nitric Oxide, Blood Circulation, Energy, Vegan, Dark Chocolate, 60 Capsules" - all for $44.99 (plus tax) which would equal about 50 bucks! Holy crap! I could buy a lot of chocolate for 50 dollars and enjoy eating it, too. I wondered when these products would start popping up. Anyway... ---End of Update #2

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