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COCOA POLYPHENOLS HEALTH EFFECTS – A RECAP
“Are polyphenols the only important constituent of cocoa?” No cocoa contains carbohydrates, fats, proteins, fiber, vitamins, minerals, methylxanthines and polyphenols. This is why cocoa is regarded as a functional food- provides health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Most of the health effects of cocoa-rich chocolate are due to the high content of nutritional polyphenols. In the last thirty years, polyphenols have attracted much interest owing to their antioxidant capacity (free radical scavenging and metal chelating ability) and their beneficial implications in human health, such as in the treatment and prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease. Hence, cocoa has the health effects generally ascribed to polyphenol consumption.
Cocoa seeds contain many bioactive compounds including high levels of polyphenols (12–18% of dry weight) as well as fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and several methylxanthine alkaloids(4% of dry weight), which are psychoactive dopaminergic substances such as caffeine, theobromine, theophylline, phenylethylamine, and paraxanthine.(Massaro et al. “Effect of Cocoa Products and Its Polyphenolic Constituents on Exercise Performance and Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage and Inflammation: A Review of Clinical Trials.” Nutrients 2019, 11, 1471; doi:10.3390/nu11071471). The compounds that show a significant correlation with the cardiometabolic health effects belong to the polyphenol class. Chemical data for dry seeds in the literature give a range of 6-18% of polyphenols, mainly composed of flavanols.
For many years, chocolate was consumed purely for pleasure, but in the last 20 years researches have shown that polyphenol-rich cocoa (dark chocolate with minimum 70% cocoa solids) and natural cocoa powder have beneficial effect on human health due to high content of polyphenols. Polyphenols are large and heterogeneous group of biologically active secondary metabolites in plants, where they act as cell wall support materials, colourful attractants for birds and insects, and defence mechanisms under different environmental stress conditions (wounding, infection, excessive light, or UV irradiation.
The most important food sources of polyphenols are vegetables and fruits, green and black tea, red wine, coffee, cocoa, olives, and some herbs and spices, as well as nuts and algae. But on weight basis cocoa is the richest source of polyphenols. Many researches have shown that polyphenols and/or polyphenol-rich foods have an important role in health preservation due to antioxidant properties. The antioxidant activity of cocoa was shown to be correlated with their polyphenol content.
Polyphenols can act as proton donor-scavenging radicals, inhibitors of enzymes that increase oxidative stress, chelate metals, bind carbohydrates, and proteins. These properties enable them to act as anticarcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, antihepatotoxic, antibacterial, antiviral, and antiallergenic compounds. This is supported by research of Hollenberg et al. who established relationship between high consumption of cocoa beverages and very low blood pressure levels, reduced frequency of myocardial infarction, stroke, diabetes mellitus, and cancer in Kuna Indians residing in archipelago on the Caribbean Coast of Panama. These health benefits were not seen in Kuna Indians residing on Mainland of Panama.
The fat in cocoa in the main is made up of oleic acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid. Cocoa is also rich in minerals: potassium, phosphorus, copper, iron, zinc, and magnesium.
Polyphenols abundant in cocoa and dark chocolate, activate endothelial nitric oxide (NO) synthase; that leads to generation of NO,, which lowers blood pressure by promoting vasodilation. Indeed, following the consumption of polyphenol-rich, effects include improvement of the pulse wave speed and of the atherosclerotic score index, with parietal relaxation of large arteries and dilation of small and medium-sized peripheral arteries. . Once released, NO also activates the prostacyclin synthesis pathway, which acts as a vasodilator in synergy with NO, thereby contributing to thrombosis protection. Further, the anti-inflammatory and vasoprotective properties of prostacyclin are enhanced by its ability to reduce plasma leukotrienes (inflammatory mediators).
Cocoa plays also a role in treating cerebral conditions, such as stroke; in fact, cocoa intake is associated with increased cerebral blood flow. Polyphenol-rich cocoa has antiplatelet effects and thus of benefit in infarctive stroke treatment or prevention. Thus, daily polyphenol-rich consumption may reduce the likelihood of a stroke attack.
Cocoa and flavonols improve glucose homeostasis by slowing carbohydrate digestion and absorption in the gu. Indeed, cocoa extracts and procyanidins dose-dependently inhibit pancreatic α-amylase, pancreatic lipase, and secreted phospholipase A2. Cocoa and its flavonols improve insulin sensitivity by regulating glucose transport and insulin signaling proteins in insulin-sensitive tissues (liver, adipose tissue, and skeletal muscle).
The observed effects on glucose homeostasis is strongly dependent on the amount of polyphenols. In fact, a single-blind randomized placebo-controlled cross-over study showed, after 4 weeks, showed positive metabolic effects in subjects consuming polyphenol-rich cocoa. Therefore, the daily consumption of small quantities of flavonols from cocoa or chocolate, associated with a dietary intake of flavonoids, would constitute a natural and economic approach to prevent or potentially contribute to the treatment of type 2 diabetes with minimal toxicity and negative side effects.
There is strong interest in the effect of intestinal microbiota on health. Cocoa with its rich fiber content, polyphenol has impacted positively on gut health and in turn on overall metabolic and cardiovascular effects among others.
Studies have shown that cocoa has regulatory properties on the immune cells implicated in both innate (natural) and acquired immunity. Effects worth pursuing and promoting in light of COVID-19.
The polyphenol-rich cocoa acts on the central nervous system (CNS) and neurological functions through the production of NO. Vasodilation and increased cerebral blood flow provide oxygen and glucose to neurons, leading to increased formation of blood vessels in the hippocampus. The polyphenol-dependent antioxidant potential could contribute to the reduction of some neurodegenerative disorders. This inference is based on the fact that age-related cognitive impairment and disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, are related to the accumulation of reactive oxygen species in the brain.
The effect of cocoa bioactives on signaling pathways in neurocytes may provide another support for linking it with regulation of brain function. Cocoa flavonols and methylxanthines can activate the cascade pathways of such molecules as rapamycin that play a crucial role in synaptic function, neuronal growth, memory mechanisms, and the pathogenesis of neurodegenerative disorders.
Polyphenol-rich cocoa exerts several effects on human sexuality, mainly acting as an aphrodisiac. Polyphenol-rich cocoa contains three unsaturated N-acylethanolamines, which, acting as cannabinoid mimics, could activate cannabinoid receptors or increase anandamide concentrations. These together with the methylxanthine components produce a transient feeling of well-being.
Until then daily/regularly consume polyphenol-rich cocoa
DR. EDWARD O. AMPORFUL
CHIEF PHARMACIST
COCOA CLINIC
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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