Is dark chocolate good for weight loss?
Last updated: June 28, 2024
Short answer: The polyphenols in dark chocolate may have health benefits. However, it is also high in sugars and saturated fats, and can lead to weight gain if consumed in excess.
Who doesn’t like to enjoy dark chocolate from time to time? Dark chocolate is derived from the cocoa bean and often has a higher cocoa content than its milk chocolate counterpart. Cocoa is rich in flavanols, a type of polyphenol, which have been linked to various health benefits, such as reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.1,2 But could these cocoa polyphenols also play a role in weight loss?
Research has suggested that dark chocolate rich in polyphenols has a beneficial effect on fat and carbohydrate metabolism, as well as satiety, or that a simple small sweet snack reduces food cravings and may thus aid weight loss.3 However, while these studies offer promising insights, it is important to consider the broader context. Dark chocolate is high in energy (531 kcal per 100 g, on average).4 and can contribute, like any other food, to weight gain if consumed in excess. Weight gain (or weight loss) results from an imbalance between the calories consumed and the calories used by our body. Eating more calories than the body needs leads to fat storage and weight gain over time.5 Dark chocolate is also high in added sugars (42g total sugars per 100g, on average) and saturated fat (21g per 100g, on average).4 It is both recommended to limit added and free sugars as much as possible and to obtain less than 10% of our total daily energy intake from saturated fats (around 20 g per day for a 2,000 kcal diet) to reduce the risks of non-absorbable and communicable diseases.
A few studies have shown that chocolate consumption is associated with a lower body mass index (BMI).6,9 However, these studies were cross-sectional and therefore cannot show cause and effect. In these types of studies, reverse causality is a common problem: one cannot be sure whether chocolate consumption affects weight or vice versa. In fact, the association diminished when researchers excluded participants with pre-existing obesity-related illness. In other words, eating chocolate didn’t make the participants lose weight, but rather they changed their diet (like eating less chocolate) after getting sick.9
Stronger evidence comes from prospective cohort studies and human intervention studies, as well as systematic reviews and meta-analyses summarizing these findings. Randomized clinical trials lasting 2 to 8 weeks in which participants ate 20 to 50 g of dark chocolate daily reported no significant weight changes.9 However, this could be due to the duration of the study which was not sufficient to identify weight changes. Another systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials reported no significant effects of cocoa or dark chocolate on body weight, BMI, and waist circumference.ten However, when analyzing a subgroup of participants eating more than 30g of chocolate per day and a subgroup of trials lasting between 4 and 8 weeks, they showed a reduction weight and BMI. Overall, the results are conflicting, indicating that further research is needed. In particular, the optimal amount of beneficial chocolate and the duration of chocolate consumption require more attention.
Take away
- Dark chocolate is high in energy and contains a moderate amount of saturated fat, as well as added sugars (depending on the brand and product), which are recommended to be limited. Like any other food, excessive consumption of dark chocolate can contribute to weight gain, as weight gain results from an overall caloric imbalance (e.g. regularly consuming more energy than we burn over long periods of time). periods).
- Some cross-sectional studies have shown that chocolate consumption is significantly linked to lower BMI. However, they do not show cause and effect.
- Evidence on the relationship between dark chocolate and weight loss from cohort studies and human intervention trials is limited and more studies are needed to draw conclusions.
- To manage your weight, choose nutrient-dense foods, make water or unsweetened beverages your drink of choice, and limit foods and drinks high in fat, sugar and salt – check the nutrition label to help you identify these.
The references
- Hooper, L., Kay, C., Abdelhamid, A., Kroon, PA, Cohn, JS, Rimm, EB, & Cassidy, A. (2012). Effects of chocolate, cocoa and flavan-3-ols on cardiovascular health: systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials. The American journal o
- Grassi, D., Desideri, G., Mai, F., Martella, L., De Feo, M., Soddu, D., … & Ferri, C. (2015). Cocoa, glucose tolerance and insulin signaling: cardiometabolic protection. Journal of Agricultural and Food chemistry, 63(45), 9919-9926.
- Farhat, G., Drummond, S., Fyfe, L., & Al‐Dujaili, EA (2014). Dark chocolate: paradox of obesity or responsible for weight gain?. Phytotherapy Research, 28(6), 791–797.
- Dutch Food Composition Database (NEVO). NEVO-online version 2021/7.1. Retrieved from https://nevo-online.rivm.nl/Home/en
- Hall, KD, Farooqi, IS, Friedman, JM, Klein, S., Loos, RJ, Mangelsdorf, DJ, … and Tobias, DK (2022). The energy balance model of obesity: beyond calories absorbed, calories expended. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 115(5), 1243-1254.
- Golomb, BA, Koperski, S., & White, HL (2012). Association between more frequent chocolate consumption and lower body mass index. Archives of Internal Medicine, 172(6), 519-521.
- Smith, L., Grabovac, I., Jackson, SE, Veronese, N., Shang, C., López-Sánchez, GF, … and Zhu, X. (2020). Chocolate consumption and predictors of adiposity in US adults. The American Journal of Medicine, 133(9), 1082-1087.
- Cuenca-García, M., Ruiz, JR, Ortega, FB, Castillo, MJ, & HELENA Study Group. (2014). Association between chocolate consumption and obesity in European adolescents. Nutrition, 30(2), 236-239.
- Farhat, G. (2014). Effect of polyphenol-rich dark chocolate on anthropometric, nutritional, biochemical and physiological markers in normal weight and overweight adults (PhD thesis, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh).
- Kord-Varkaneh, H., Ghaedi, E., Nazary-Vanani, A., Mohammadi, H., & Shab-Bidar, S. (2019). Does cocoa/dark chocolate supplementation have a favorable effect on body weight, body mass index and waist circumference? A systematic review, meta-analysis and study
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