A dark (chocolate) force to aid energy

Adding a little dark chocolate to a training diet may effortlessly improve endurance performance, according to a study of sports nutrition.

Dark chocolate is generally rich in epicatechin, which is known to prompt cells that line blood vessels to release extra nitric oxide. Nitric oxide slightly increases the widening of the veins and arteries, improving blood flow and cardiac function. It also gooses muscle cells to take in more blood sugar, providing them with more energy, and it enhances the passage of oxygen into cells.

Researchers at Kingston University in England studied eight male recreational cyclists for two weeks. Each of the cyclists performed better in most of the physical tests after supplementing with dark chocolate, compared with baseline results and after they had eaten white chocolate, which has little or no epicatechin. The riders used less oxygen to ride at a moderate pace, a change that would generally allow them to ride longer or harder before tiring, and they covered more distance during a two-minute, all-out time trial, meaning that their anaerobic, sprinting ability had been enhanced.

Eating to save your sight from cataracts

Here's another reason to eat your fruits and vegetables: You may reduce your risk of vision loss from cataracts.

Cataracts that cloud the lenses of the eye develop naturally with age, but a new study is one of the first to suggest that diet may play a greater role than genetics in their progression.

About 1,000 pairs of female twins underwent digital imaging to measure the progression of cataracts. The researchers found that women who consumed diets rich in vitamin C and who ate about two servings of fruit and two servings of vegetables a day had a 20 percent lower risk of cataracts than those who ate a less nutrient-rich diet. Ten years later, the scientists followed up with 324 of the pairs, and found that those who had reported consuming at least twice the recommended dietary allowance pf vitamin C had a 33 percent lower risk of their cataracts progressing than those who had less vitamin C.

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