Apr 02, 2014 02:05 PM EDT By Jaleesa Baulkman, UniversityHerald Reporter

We've got good news for chocolate lovers.

The typically sweetened food produce may help prevent obesity, as well as type-2 diabetes, according to a recent study.

Researchers found that cocoa, the basic ingredient in chocolate and one of the most flavanol-rich foods around, can prevent people from gaining excess weight and lower blood sugar levels. Their study found that one particular type of antioxidant in cocoa prevented laboratory mice from gaining excess weight and lowered their blood sugar levels.

"That's good for chocolate lovers because previous research has shown that flavanols in other foods such as grapes and tea can help fight weight gain and type-2 diabetes," researchers said in a news release.

However, researchers realized not all flavanols, which are a type of antioxidant, are created equal. Cocoa has several different kinds of these compounds, so the investigating team decided to tease them apart and test each individually for health benefits.

For the recent study, researchers fed groups of mice different diets, including high-fat and low-fat diets, and high-fat diets supplemented with different kinds of flavanols.

They found that adding one particular set of these compounds, known as oligomeric procyanidins (PCs), to the food made the biggest difference in keeping the mice's weight down if they were on high-fat diets. They also improved glucose tolerance, which could potentially help prevent type-2 diabetes.

"Oligomeric PCs appear to possess the greatest antiobesity and antidiabetic bioactivities of the flavanols in cocoa, particularly at the low doses employed for the present study," the researchers state.

Previous studies have linked chocolate to health benefits such as improved thinking, decreased appetite and lower blood pressure.

The findings were recently published in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry.

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