Mother Talkers

Eat chocolate, reduce preeclampsia risk?

by Rachel

Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 09:16:52 AM PDT

It’s a win/win for pregnant ladies, potentially. A Yale University study has found that eating a regular amount of dark chocolate may reduce the risk of preeclampsia, a condition afflicting pregnant women that causes wild spikes of high blood pressure. Elizabeth Triche of the Yale Center for Perinatal, Pediatric and Environmental Epidemiology  headed the study, which found the following, as summed up in this Reuters article:

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.

I must note that in other coverage, the numbers of participants is different- this article says there were only 1,681 participants. Of course, I’m counting on our science MTs (Aussieyank? Lyn?) to pipe up with their professional interpretation, however if there are plans for a multi-year, multi-continent study to further analyse this finding, I’ll put my hand up. I’m doing it for the sisterhood, of course. Just pass me the chocolate.

How about it, MTs? Can we pay attention to this week’s study because we like the findings?

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Tags: medical study, pregnancy, chocolate, preeclampsia (all tags)

Permalink | 26 comments

  • CRAVED chocolate (0 / 0)

    I craved chocolate during both of my pregnancies.  I normally love chocolate anyway but I couldn't get enough while pregnant.  It was about the only thing I could eat in the early nauseous days.  And the darker and the richer---oh yum.

    The closer I got to my due dates, the more I wanted chocolate cake or a rich chocolate anything.  In fact, two days before my son was born, we stopped at a little shop so I could get a dark chocolate milkshake and some sort of chocolate dessert.  I couldn't help myself.

    I never had a b/p or preeclampsia problem but I did have two children who share my love for chocolate.

    They must have had huge amounts of theobromine in their umbilical cords.

    by janetle on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 09:27:43 AM PDT

    • I crave chocolate pudding (0 / 0)

      when I am having migraine/cluster headaches.  In fact, there have been times when its all I can eat.  Migraine and pre-eclampsia no doubt have many overlapping mechanisms...could be a link, I suppose.  

      by tjb22 on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 01:16:35 PM PDT

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      • mmmm chocolate pudding n/t (0 / 0)

        by mamacita on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 07:54:07 PM PDT

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        • Oh great. (0 / 0)

          Thanks guys. Now I have to go and make chocolate pudding. And there's no instant in this country. It's from scratch. sigh...

          by aussieyank on Thu May 01, 2008 at 04:30:14 AM PDT

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          • How do you make (0 / 0)

            pudding from scratch? I know its technically possible, but do you have a good recipe? I've never tried.

            by Suzanne77 on Thu May 01, 2008 at 04:41:38 AM PDT

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            • Mmmm.... (0 / 0)

              I've got some good ones. Believe it or not, this one is fantastic. It's dairy and egg free...which I don't usually mess with, but I was taking a whole foods cooking class and we made it. Truly divine.

              Chocolate Banana Pudding (Jude Blereau, WholeFoodCooking)
              3 1/2 tablespoons kudzu (49 gm) or arrowroot (thickener)
              2 tablespoons cocoa
              2 tablespoons rapadura sugar or maple syrup
              1 1/2 cup rice milk
              3/4 cup coconut milk
              1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
              2 bananas

              Add the kudzu or arrowroot, cocoa, rapadura sugar or maple syrup to a medium saucepan, with 1/2 cup rice milk and stir into a smooth slurry. Add the remaining 1 cup rice milk, coconut milk and vanilla and whisk until well combined. Place over a medium heat and just bring to the boil, stirring constantly until thick and smooth. Once you see the bubbles from the boil, give it a couple more stirs and remove from heat. Peel and cut the banana into small pieces and divide between small pots or bowls. Spoon the chocolate pudding over the bananas and serve, or let cool and serve later.

              I've got this eerie thought that I may have posted this recipe before...apologies if I have.

              For those that like their eggs and milk...
              Real Chocolate Custard (pudding in American)
              1 cup milk
              1 cup thickened cream (whipping cream if you americans can't find it)
              1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp extract or paste
              4 egg yolks
              1 tablespoon cornflour
              1/3 cup caster sugar (that's just fine grained white sugar)
              100 g chopped good quality dark chocolate (or milk...if you must)

              Combine milk and cream in a small saucepan. Using a sharp knife, split vanilla bean in half lengthways and scrape out seeds. Add bean and seeds to milk mixture. Place over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes or until hot (do not allow to boil). Remove saucepan from heat.Whisk egg yolks, cornflour and sugar in a heatproof bowl until well combined. Remove vanilla beans from milk mixture. Pour hot milk mixture over egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly.Return mixture to saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring constantly, for 15 to 20 minutes or until custard thickens and coats the back of a metal spoon (do not allow custard to boil, as it might curdle). Add chocolate and stir until smooth.

              I'm hungry now.

              by aussieyank on Thu May 01, 2008 at 05:11:48 AM PDT

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              • ah ha,... (0 / 0)

                so, rapadura sugar can be used as a maple syrup substitute, can it? What the hell is that, by the way?

                by Rachel on Thu May 01, 2008 at 05:26:11 AM PDT

                [ Parent ]

                • well... (0 / 0)

                  Let's see. "Rapadura sugar is the dried whole natural juice of the sugar cane. Unlike other sugar, Rapadura sugar is never separated from its molasses content, thus it retains all the vitamins and minerals available from sugar cane." Snort. Whatever. It's a very sweet, slightly mollassesy sugar. Kind of like a find grained dark brown sugar. I like using it in cooking...but just because I like the taste. Although, I did just discover through Wikipedia that it's very rich in dietary iron...

                  by aussieyank on Thu May 01, 2008 at 05:42:16 AM PDT

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              • Thank you (0 / 0)

                for both recipes, I will prolly use the second one as I am allergic to coconut, dammit! No more pina coladas for me. I like pina coladas...and taking walks in the rain.

                Ahem.

                Yeah, when I went to Englad I was so excited because someone mentioned pudding with dinner and there was this big puffy bread thing, but no pudding (custard). Yeah, it took me awhile to figure it out, even after YEARS of anglophlic reading. Yeah, the Christmas Puddings of Dickens, LM Montgomery, James Herriot and the rest all sadly gone!

                by Suzanne77 on Thu May 01, 2008 at 02:41:01 PM PDT

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  • Seems like a win-win to me (0 / 0)

    I always use the cafeteria plan where research is concerned.  It makes my life so much simpler...

    by Laura on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 10:16:36 AM PDT

  • OK, I'm procrastinating (0 / 0)

    Always happy to have an invitation to pontificate, especially when I'm avoiding homework. :-)  The study looks very good to me.  The authors were careful and thorough, and the correlation looks robust.

    First, here's the discrepancy in the numbers.  Some of the 2291 women were excluded from analysis for various causes (for example, diabetes or preexisting hypertension) - that number's just wrong.  Of the actual subjects, not all women had cord blood assayed:

    After these exclusions, the biomarker exposure analyses included 1346 women; analyses of reported chocolate consumption included 1681 women.

    Look closely at the way the authors themselves phrase their conclusion:

    Our results raise the possibility that chocolate consumption by pregnant women may reduce the occurrence of preeclampsia.

    The media will of course find a wimpy but accurate conclusion unacceptable; fortunately journalists will "fix" this for the layman. :-(

    However, reverse causality may also contribute to these findings.

    Translation:  Correlation does not imply causation.  Chocolate may reduce preeclampsia, preeclampsia may reduce chocolate consumption (or theobromine metabolism), a cause of preeclampsia may reduce consumption of chocolate, etc, etc.  The authors were concerned about women with preeclampsia changing their diets, overweight women cutting back on sweets, etc.  They didn't find evidence of this but can't rule it out.

    by lyn on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 10:28:13 AM PDT

  • small rant (0 / 0)

    By the way, the above quotes are from the actual journal article.  I clicked on one of the links provided just to get the reference but didn't even bother to skim the press coverage. Which might tell you what I think of science journalism in general.

    Can we pay attention to this week’s study because we like the findings?

    No, but we can pay attention because the study was well done.  Quality is a small detail that is almost never raised in the uncritical press, which prefers to believe that there are two more or less equal "sides" to every "story".  This gives everyone the opportunity to choose the "side" they prefer.  Or alternatively, to reach the perfectly understandable conclusion that all studies are invalid and unreliable.

    by lyn on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 10:41:05 AM PDT

  • We're assuming that (0 / 0)

    pre-eclampsia has a cardio-vascular cause.  This isn't known.  Certainly, it causes effects within the cardio-vascular system, but that's an entirely different proposition.  

    I don't know.  I didn't crave chocolate while I was pregnant that I recall.  I do know that more than a little gives me heart burn under the best of circumstances!  I also had gestational diabetes in most of my pregnancies, and I had some weird cardiovascular things going on that could, or could not have been, related to pre-eclampsia.  

    Now, if only they would have concluded that strawberry cheesecake icecream or lemon cream pie prevented pre-eclampsia!

    by tjb22 on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 10:48:29 AM PDT

    • no, this part is ok - no assumptions (0 / 0)

      An possible association between preeclampsia and cardiovascular factors was certainly the basis for the hypothesis.  But a strength of the paper is that it doesn't actually assume or rely upon any identifiable cause for preeclampsia.  Nor do the authors conclude that the observed association is related to the cardiovascular system.

      by lyn on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 10:55:53 AM PDT

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  • For the baby (0 / 0)

    That's why I ate Dove dark chocolate every morning while pregnant.  Because I'm a giver.

    by coobert on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 11:17:35 AM PDT

  • I didn't exactly have preeclampsia (0 / 0)

    But I did have pregnancy-induced hypertension in both my pregnancies.  With both of them, right at 33 weeks my blood pressure shot through the roof and I had to be on strict horizontal bed rest from that point on.  If I even sat up a little it would go up to like 155/115.  I  guess it probably would have escalated to preeclampsia if I wasn't induced when I was.  Anyway, I don't remember eating a huge amount of chocolate, but knowing me I'm sure I had some.  I guess if I were to ever get pregnant again I could test the hypothesis...

    by hazel on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 05:32:31 PM PDT

  • I think the sample size is fine (0 / 0)

    There's a point of diminishing returns in recruiting research subjects but this looks like a pretty strong number to me in terms of statistical power.  (Not that anyone asked!)

    I had pre-eclampsia during labor.  I am pretty sure I would have been an outlier in this study as I consider chocolate a food group and no doubt ate more than my share of it while pg.  I also must have eaten a lot of bananas, as I had a boy.

    by mamacita on Wed Apr 30, 2008 at 07:53:50 PM PDT

  • There is a study underway (0 / 0)

    right now, asking post menopausal women to eat some very specific form of dark chocolate every day for 2 years? I think its being done in England. Anyhow they are studying the cardiovascualr benefits.

    by Suzanne77 on Thu May 01, 2008 at 04:43:22 AM PDT

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