The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, published inAmerican Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was performed in total on 21,442 U.S. adults, including 12,666 women aged 65 years and older and 8,776 men aged 60 years and older, free of major CVD and recently diagnosed cancer. The intervention phase ran from June 2015 through December 2020.
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The cocoa extract intervention specifically gave participants either 500mg cocoa extract per day or a placebo. During a median follow-up of 3.6 years, 410 of the test group and 456 of the placebo group had confirmed total cardiovascular events.While the cocoa extract didn’t significantly reduce cardiovascular events, the researchers are calling for additional research to clarify whether it could—especially since supplementation did reduce CVD death by 27%.
