Clinical Interventions in Aging, 12/02/2016 Okamoto T, et al.

For this study, researchers examine the impacts of cocoa consumption frequency on arterial stiffness in postmenopausal women. In spite of the fact that this study did not include a sedentary control group, these outcomes recommend that regardless of frequency, habitual cocoa consumption decreases central and peripheral arterial stiffness in postmenopausal women.

• 64±12 years was the mean age ± standard deviation of the participant.
• A sum of 26 postmenopausal women were haphazardly assigned to two groups with different cocoa–intake frequencies: one group ingested 17 g of cocoa once daily except on Sundays (every–day group, n=13), and the other ingested 17 g of cocoa twice daily every other day (every–other–day group, n=13).
• These consumption regimens were kept up in both groups for 12 weeks.
• Carotid–femoral pulse–wave velocity and femoral–ankle pulse–wave velocity were measured in both groups at baseline and again at the end of the 12–week study period.
• Contrasted with baseline, both pulse–wave velocities had altogether diminished after the 12–week study period in both groups (P<0.05).
• However, no significant difference in degree of change was observed between the two groups.