Popular Christmas drink ‘protects your heart – cancelling out the damage done by junk food and stress’

A STEAMING mug of a soothing festive portion could support your bosom from the harm done by fatty comfortableness foods we gorge connected erstwhile stressed, caller probe suggests.

What we devour erstwhile we're nether strain tin power however overmuch accent affects our bosom health, experts say.

But present a tiny survey has recovered that sipping connected hot chocolate could temper immoderate of this impact.

Cocoa - the cardinal constituent in chocolate - is peculiarly precocious successful flavanols.

These are compounds recovered successful immoderate foods and drinks, similar apples and tea.

Flavonols are thought to person a scope of antithetic wellness benefits, similar regulating humor unit and protecting cardiovascular health.

If you thin to scope for fatty treats for a speedy hole oregon to combat stress, adding a cupful of minimally processed cocoa "could marque a existent difference" to your health, researchers said.

A cupful of green tea - besides affluent successful flavonols - could person akin benefits.

Dr Catarina Rendeiro, the study's pb writer and an adjunct prof successful nutritional sciences astatine the University of Birmingham, said: "We cognize that erstwhile radical are stressed, they thin to gravitate towards high-fat foods.

"We person antecedently shown that fatty nutrient tin impair the body's vascular betterment from stress.

"In this study, we wanted to spot if adding a high-flavanol nutrient to the fatty repast would alleviate the antagonistic impact of accent successful the body."

Jet Veldhuijzen van Zanten, prof of biologic psychology astatine the University of Birmingham, added: "Modern beingness is stressful and the interaction of accent connected our wellness and the system has been good documented, truthful immoderate changes we tin marque to support ourselves from immoderate of the symptoms of accent is positive.

"For those who thin to scope for a dainty erstwhile stressed oregon beryllium connected convenient nutrient due to the fact that they enactment high-pressure jobs oregon are time-poor, incorporating immoderate of these tiny changes could marque a existent difference."

In a erstwhile study, the Birmingham researchers recovered that high-fat foods tin negatively impact the relation of humor vessels and oxygen transportation to the brain, portion flavanols - recovered successful abundance successful cocoa and greenish beverage - tin support this relation during periods of mundane stress.

Dr Rendeiro said: "This probe shows that drinking oregon eating a nutrient precocious successful flavanols tin beryllium utilized arsenic a strategy to mitigate immoderate of the interaction of poorer nutrient choices connected the vascular system.

"This tin assistance america marque much informed decisions astir what we devour and portion during stressful periods."

For the study, researchers gave 23 steadfast adults 2 food croissants with 10g salted butter, 1.5 slices of cheddar cheese and 250ml whole milk for breakfast.

This fatty repast was combined with either a high-flavanol cocoa oregon a low-flavanol cocoa drink.

After an eight-minute remainder period, the radical was asked to implicit an eight-minute agelong intelligence maths test, which accrued successful velocity and alerted them erstwhile they got an reply wrong

During the remainder and test, scientists measured humor travel successful participants' forearms, arsenic good arsenic their bosom enactment and oxygen levels successful their body.

They recovered that the stressful task caused important increases successful bosom complaint and humor unit - akin to the accent that whitethorn beryllium encountered successful regular life.

The researchers besides observed that participants who sipped connected a low-flavonol portion with their fatty meal had reduced humor vas relation erstwhile stressed.

This lasted up to 90 minutes aft the stressful lawsuit was over.

But the cocoa portion precocious successful flavanols prevented the diminution successful humor vas relation pursuing accent and abdominous consumption, the survey published successful the diary Food And Function found.

Experts advised you look for minimally processed cocoa pulverization successful the supermarkets if you're mixing yourself a festive portion this Christmas.

If blistery cocoa isn't your beverage of choice, determination are different ways you tin get a higher dose of flavanols, specified arsenic greenish tea, achromatic beverage and berries.

It comes aft scientists warned that cow's milk could trigger harmful inflammation and compartment damage, increasing the hazard of fatal bosom attacks - particularly successful women.