Need a Natural Skin Care Product? Dark Chocolate is Good for Skin

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Dark chocolate good for skin? Imagine enjoying cocoa-rich chocolate and seeing an overall improvement in your skin's health. It's that simple, according to one study.

It's the large dose of powerful antioxidants in the cocoa that is thought to provide the benefits. This daily dose not only enriched the skin but also offered protection from harmful UV rays.

Better skin and sun protection from eating chocolate? One study has demonstrated the potential, but more research is needed. Read the exciting findings.

Good News! Several more studies have confirmed this study's findings.

Dark Chocolate Study

German researchers studied dark chocolate to determine whether it contained skin protecting substances. These impressive improvements were noted...

• a 25% reduction in UV light induced skin reddening compared to tests conducted before the study
• a 42% reduction in scaliness
• a 30% reduction in roughness
• a 16% increase in density
• a 13% increase in moistness
• and an 11% increase in thickness

Twenty-four women ages 18 to 65 consumed about 1/2 cup of cocoa per day for 12 weeks. Half drank cocoa with 329 milligrams of

antioxidants per portion. The other half drank cocoa with only 27 milligrams of antioxidants per portion.

Skin improvements were seen only in the group that consumed the 329 mg of antioxidants.

Talk about a dream come true, smoother, softer skin, just by eating chocolate.

How Much Chocolate Does it Take?

Can you add enough antioxidants to your diet to see these benefits? Yes, but you would have to eat about 3oz. of cocoa-rich dark chocolate candy.

This would mean an extra 400 to 500 calories. Can you afford that? Me neither.

You could look for chocolate that lists the antioxidant content on the wrapper.  Then cut back on calories elsewhere to avoid weight gain.

Or you could get some of those antioxidants from cocoa bean extract. These dark chocolate capsules contain very few calories.

The study used a special cocoa, about 50 calories per serving, not available to consumers. Not yet, anyway!

Natural Skin Care

Looks that way. Picture it...an edible sunscreen that tastes delicious and improves your skin's texture.

That's just what dark chocolate could turn out to be!

If it does, it will be the antioxidants that played an important role by...

• absorbing harmful UV light that can lead to skin cancer
• and by increasing blood flow to the skin

The two key reasons dark chocolate is likely to be good for skin.

These benefits are exciting but more studies are needed to confirm them. Let's hope they do! (No need to hope anymore. More studies have been done!)

What could be better than eating dark chocolate that's good for your skin. Surely, we would all enjoy taking better care of our skin if we could do it while satisfying our craving for chocolate!