With high flavanol cacao becoming more and more popular in recent years as both a health food and an alternative to caffeine, much research has naturally been done to confirm many of its most celebrated effects. From benefits to cardiovascular health, cognitive health, and even risk of diseases from cancer to diabetes, many studies now suggest organic and raw cacao are truly among the best foods out there to help meet your health goals.
But with high flavanol cacao being relatively newly popular as it is, you might be wondering, what do we know about its long-term effects? Do improvements in these areas of health persist when consuming cacao daily for months or even years, and are there side effects that can emerge when taking it for this long? Read on for a more in-depth look:
Long-Term Effects of Cocoa Flavanols on Cardiovascular Health
Due to the strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of high flavanol cacao, its potential benefits to cardiovascular health are numerous and much-discussed. And as you may expect, its ability to help lower blood pressure is not instant. US Cardiology Review describes a set of studies in which subjects taking high flavanol cacao for fifteen days saw a significant reduction in daily blood pressure, while those taking it for just four days were not yet affected[1].
To talk about genuinely long-term effects, however, we can look to a study published just last year by the American Heart Association[2]. There, researchers found that even after nearly three and a half years, cacao supplementation lowered hypertension risk among already-healthy individuals, while noting it did not affect already-hypertensive individuals in the same way.
Long-Term Effects of Cocoa Flavanols on Cognitive Performance
The effects of high flavanol cacao on cognitive health, on the other hand, may be even more impressive when discussing their ability to persist long-term. It is known that cacao can help prevent or reverse age-based cognitive decline in older adults, but listen to how Columbia University describes the findings of their extended trial performed in 2014.
What are the long term effects of cocoa flavanols? According to Columbia, after having healthy older adults supplement with flavanols for three months and measuring both blood flow to the brain and memory, improvements were very noticeable[3]. Said Dr. Scott A. Small, “If a participant had the memory of a typical 60-year-old at the beginning of the study, after three months that person on average had the memory of a typical 30- or 40-year-old”.
Side Effects of Long-Term Cacao Consumption
In our previous article about potential side effects of epicatechin, the main type of flavanol found in high flavanol cacao, we went over the fact there are no known major side effects of taking cacao daily within the recommended amounts. While minor feelings of dizziness, headaches, or gastrointestinal discomfort may be possible as with any food providing a mild stimulant effect, and you should stop taking if you have any allergic reaction, these don’t appear to be common.
