ABOUT CHOCOLATE

1) MLA CITATION
For my news report, I chose an article from the BBC website about “Chocolate has health benefits” I chose this topic because I am interested in sweets especially chocolate. Here is the article’s MLA citation:
“Chocolate has health benefits”, BBC NEWS, Amanda Veze Tuesday 22 May 2005

2) ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Chocolate ‘has health benefits’
Eating dark chocolate could help control diabetes and blood pressure, Italian experts say.
Researchers found eating 100g of dark chocolate each day for 15 days lowered blood pressure in the 15 person-study. The University of L’Aquila team also found the body’s ability to metabolise sugar – a problem for people with diabetes – was improved. But eating the same quantities of white chocolate did not have an effect, the researchers said. The team said an antioxidant called flavanol was responsible for the effect because it neutralised potentially cell-damaging substances known as oxygen free radicals, the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition reported.
But despite the benefits of dark chocolate, lead researcher Dr Claudio Ferri said people should be careful about chocolate consumption. “Dark chocolate contains antioxidants, but also a lot of fat and calories. “People who want to add some chocolate to their diet need to subtract an equivalents amount of calories by cutting back on other foods to avoid weight gain.” Writing in the journal, nutrition expert Cesar Fraga, of the University of California, said the findings on blood pressure seemed credible. He said other foods containing flavanols, such as tea and wine, have a similar effect on blood pressure. And he added: “The identification of healty foods and the understanding of how food components influence normal physiology will help improve the health of the population.” Diabetes UK care adviser Amanda Vezey pointed out it was a small study, but said it was still interesting.
“People with diabetes can eat dark chocolate like everyone else in moderation. “However, we would still recommend a balanced low fat, salt and sugar diet that includes starchy carbohydrates and plenty of fruit and vegetables combined with regular exercise to help people with diabetes control their condition.” And Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of the Blood Pressure Association, said more research was needed. But he added: “The benefits of eating chocolate are likely to be outweighed by the disadvantages as chocolate is high in sugar and fat.”

3) SUMMARY
Some researcher found eating 100g dark chocolate for 15days has probability of preventing diabetes. Dark chocolates include one substance what is called “flavanol” which affect bringing down blood pressure. However chocolates contain a lot of fat and calories, so if you want to bring down blood pressure by eating chocolate, you should take it with low calories foods such as fruits and vegetables. In addition, as for ordinary people, eating chocolate is effective activities which prevent suffering from diabetes, but actual patients who suffering from diabetes need to do some exercise and control their conditions rather than eating chocolate.
4) OPINION
At present, a lot of food are researched and considered as healthy foods by some professors and researchers. These researches are extremely meaningful and significant things for us to extend our life-span. However some researches have accurate evidence, but others do not have certain evidence so it is danger for us to believe easily uncertain information about foods. We need to reconsider and carefully select an article. Moreover, foods are most essential and principal elements for our life, so it is important for us to make living regularly eating habits before we suffer from some diseases. After we got a sick, maybe the prevention is too late, I think.