How sweet it is

Sometimes life can be pretty sweet, as evidenced by the surfeit of research suggesting that chocolate may help battle against heart disease. By now, this morsel of info may be old news to you, but what may not is that Dutch scientists discovered that chocolate contains antioxidants that are even more powerful than previously thought.

After studying roughly 500 men for 15 years, they discovered that those who ate the most cocoa daily had a 50 percent lower risk of dying of heart disease than those who ate the least.

The antioxidants in cocoa activate nitric oxide, an enzyme that relaxes blood vessels, making it easier for the heart to deliver blood throughout your body. Insofar as this particular study is concerned, and what makes it so unique, is that it was discovered that the men in the study who ate the most chocolate -- and, by association, had the lowest heart-related mortality rate -- only consumed 4 grams of cocoa per day. This is about the equivalent of two Hershey's Kisses per day.

Pretty sweet, huh?