IN PICS! Chocolate Day Special: Check out the health benefits eating dark chocolate

Today is the third day of Valentine's Week 2021. Today people celebrate Chocolate Day. They express love by giving chocolates to their loved ones.

Dark chocolate has a high cocoa content, lots of nutrients, a decent amount of soluble fibre and minerals.

Dark chocolate has compounds that appear to protect against oxidation of LDL, which in the long run could lessen cholesterol lodging in the arteries and lower the risk of heart disease.

Eaten in moderation, the flavanols in dark chocolate can stimulate the endothelium, the lining of arteries, to produce nitric oxide (NO). The nitric oxide functions by sending signals to the arteries to relax, which, in turn, lowers the resistance to blood flow and reduces blood pressure.

A study found that cocoa powder has the capability to increase high-density lipoproteins (HDL), which is good cholesterol, and lower the oxidized low-density lipoproteins (LDL), which is bad cholesterol.

Dark chocolate can also reduce insulin resistance, which is a factor for many diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

Another study showed that eating dark chocolate more than 5 times per week lowered the risk of heart disease by 57 per cent.

Dark chocolate contains bio-active compounds that are good for the skin, with flavanols protecting against sun damage, improving blood flow to the skin and increasing skin density and hydration.

A study has shown that dark chocolate could help in improving the function of the brain, with healthy volunteers showing that eating high-flavanol cocoa for five days improved blood flow to the brain.

Apart from that, cocoa could also improve cognitive function in elderly people with mental impairment and improve verbal fluency.

The fact that cocoa contains stimulant substances like caffeine and theobromine, could explain why it improves brain function in the short term.

- Products made from cocoa help improve cardio metabolic health, the research also found.