Larisa Bozhikova/Getty Images/iStockphotoA single square of dark chocolate contains about a quarter of the daily recommended amount of magnesium, which scientists say can help prevent pancreatic cancer.
Chocolate may be even more wonderful than we thought.
It’s not a cure for cancer, but a new study shows that dark chocolate can help ward off one of the most lethal cancers, pancreatic.
“Except (for) its sugar, chocolate is generally healthy,” said Ka He, the coauthor of the study and chairman of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington. “Chocolate contains magnesium, which may partially explain its benefits.”
Magnesium has been shown to dramatically lower the rates of pancreatic cancer, which is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths in this country.
Many foods have magnesium, but dark chocolate is a silver bullet because one single square — about an ounce — provides roughly a quarter of the daily recommended magnesium requirement. And one cup of pumpkin seeds provide about 42% — though fewer people crave pumpkin seeds in the manner of chocolate.
Magnesium is also found in spinach, Swiss chard, soybeans, sesame seeds, quinoa, black beans, cashews and sunflower seeds.
He’s new study, published in the British Journal of Cancer, found that for every 100 milligrams per day decrease in magnesium, there was a 24% increase in pancreatic cancer.
Adult males should get about 420 milligrams of magnesium a day and women should get 320, and 320 for females, according to the National Institutes of Health.
“The five-year survival rate is really low, so that makes prevention and identifying risk factors or predictors associated with pancreatic cancer very important,” He said.
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.