Mar 17, 2014 12:33 PM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

Dark chocolate is one of the few sweets with valid health benefits. Because of its drawbacks -- sugars bad for our teeth and overall health -- scientists in a new study will attempt to isolate the treat's healthy properties into a "chocolate pill," the Huffington Post reported.

The pill will densely pack the "good parts," which include flavanols, of dark chocolate to test their health benefits in quantities equal to an unhealthy number of candy bars.

Other studies have linked flavanols to reduced blood pressure and cholesterol; more efficient use of the body's use of insulin; improved artery health; and other heart-related factors, according to the Huff Post. Never has a study tested the substance in large quantities.

Most forms of commercially available dark chocolate don't actually have flavanols after they're lost during processing. 

"You're not going to get these protective flavanols in most of the candy on the market. Cocoa flavanols are often destroyed by the processing," Dr. JoAnn Manson, preventive medicine chief at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and co-leader of the study, told Huff Post.

Sponsored by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and Mars Inc., manufacturer of M&M's and Snickers, 18,000 people will participate in the two-part study. The second part will test the effects of multivitamins on cancer prevention in the general population.

For four years in the chocalte study, two sets of participants will take placebos or the flavanol pills daily. Neither, unfortunately, will taste like chocolate.

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