Go ahead and enjoy some Easter candy. Not a lot. And make sure it's chocolate. The dark kind.

A new study published online Wednesday in the European Heart Journal says small quantities of dark chocolate -- just one small square a day, or this week, one small egg -- can lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of heart disease.

This is the latest study to make such a finding, but I thought that I'd give it some play since the Easter baskets are coming.

Researchers in Germany followed more than 19,000 people who were between 35 and 65 for at least 10 years and found that those who ate the most amount of chocolate had the lower blood pressure and and a 39 percent lower risk of having a heart attack or stroke. The good amount was an average of 7.5 grams a day. Those with worse result ae 1.7 grams a day. (The 6-gram difference was equal to less than one small square of a 100 gram bar.)

Dr Brian Buijsse, a nutritional epidemiologist at the German Institute of Human Nutrition, Nuthetal, Germany, who led the research, warned that it was important that people did not increase the overall amount of calories or reduce their intake of healthy foods. Sorry, can't live on chocolate alone.

As in other studies, the researcher say it's the flavanols in cocoa that are likely behind the lower blood pressure. There's more cocoa in dark chocolate, explaining the increased benefits of that kind. The flavanols appear to increase the availability of nitric oxide in the cells that line the inner wall of blood vessels. That nitric oxide causes the smooth muscle cells of the blood vessels to relax and widen, leading to lower blood pressure. It also improves platelet function.

But again, moderation. About 100 grams of dark chocolate contains roughly 500 calories. 

McClatchy-Tribune photo