Pregnancy and Chocolate

Now THIS is good news!!!!!

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Indulging in chocolate during pregnancy
could help ward off a serious complication known as preeclampsia, new
research suggests.

Chocolate, especially dark chocolate, is rich in a chemical called
theobromine, which stimulates the heart, relaxes smooth muscle and
dilates blood vessels, and has been used to treat chest pain, high
blood pressure, and hardening of the arteries, Dr. Elizabeth W.
Triche of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut and colleagues
write.

Preeclampsia, in which blood pressure spikes during pregnancy while
excess protein is released into the urine, has many features in
common with heart disease, the researchers add.

To investigate whether chocolate's possible cardiovascular benefits
also might help prevent preeclampsia, the researchers looked at 2,291
women who delivered a single infant, and asked them about how much
chocolate they consumed in their first and third trimesters. The
researchers also tested levels of theobromine in infants' umbilical
cord blood.

Women who consumed the most chocolate and those whose infants had the
highest concentration of theobromine in their cord blood were the
least likely to develop preeclampsia. Women in the highest quarter
for cord blood theobromine were 69 percent less likely to develop the
complication than those in the lowest quarter.

Women who ate five or more servings of chocolate each week in their
third trimester of pregnancy were 40 percent less likely to develop
preeclampsia than those who ate chocolate less than once a week.

A similar, but weaker, relationship between chocolate consumption and
preeclampsia risk was seen in the first trimester, with women eating
five or more servings of chocolate each week at 19 percent lower risk
than those who ate chocolate less than once a week.

Theobromine could improve circulation within the placenta while
blocking oxidative stress, or it could also be a stand-in for other
beneficial chemicals found in chocolate, Triche and her team note in
the May issue of Epidemiology.

"Our results raise the possibility that chocolate consumption by
pregnant women may reduce the occurrence of preeclampsia," they
write. "Because of the importance of preeclampsia as a major
complication of pregnancy, replication of these results in other
large prospective studies with a detailed assessment of chocolate
consumption is warranted."

SOURCE: Epidemiology, May 2008.

-SBH