In my book, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, I list chocolate as one of the best foods on earth.

Chocolate is also one of the seven foods that make up what researchers writing in the British Medical Journal1 called the “Polymeal,” a kind of super meal that, if eaten daily or even a few times a week, could conceivably reduce heart disease and death by double digit percentages.

So what should we make of a  new study suggesting that regular consumption of chocolate may weaken bone density and strength, which in turn could increase the risk of health problems such as osteoporosis and fracture?

According to the study,2 published recently in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, women who eat chocolate daily have an overall bone density 3.1% lower than those who consume it less than once a week.

Should you be worried? Was I and everyone else wrong about chocolate’s “super food” status? Is this another example of nutritionists “changing their collective mind”?

Nope. This is quite simply one of the dumbest studies ever published.

Why is this the dumbest study ever done? Because — I hope you’re sitting down — the researchers didn’t bother to distinguish among the types of chocolate consumed!

So here’s the deal: what the researchers really found was that women who eat chocolate candy on a daily basis have weaker bones than those who don’t. There was absolutely no distinction made between a bar of Hershey’s Milk Chocolate (which has virtually no protective flavonols) and a bar of 80% cocoa dark chocolate.

This is why people go nuts when they hear nutrition research and feel like experts don’t know what they’re talking about. Many studies say chocolate is great (for lowering blood pressure among other things) and now this study says it’s bad. No wonder the public gets confused.

But the truth is, they’re using the word chocolate to talk about two entirely different substances. A candy bar with tons of sugar, wax, emulsifiers, chocolate flavoring, and no naturally occurring phenols to speak of is not the chocolate we mean when we talk about high cocoa dark chocolate — these researchers didn’t seem to notice the difference, and referred to both of them as “chocolate.”

That’s like doing a research study on “athletes” and not bothering to distinguish between Olympic runners and retired shuffleboard players.

Since the researchers didn’t bother to ask, let me venture a wild guess. The ladies in this study were not consuming 80% cocoa dark chocolate daily. They were eating candy bars.  The results of this study should have been reported this way: sugar contributes to weak bones.

This study actually has nothing to do with the kind of chocolate I wrote about in The 150 Healthiest Foods Earth. It has to do with candy and sugar.  It’s unbelievable that the researchers didn’t know enough to distinguish between the two.

References

1. Franco OH et al. British Medical Journal , Vol 329, p 1447, 2004.
2. Hodgson, JM et al. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 87, No. 1, 175-180, January 2008.

[Ed. note: Dr. Bowden is a nationally known expert on weight loss, nutrition and health. He's a board certified nutrition specialist with a Master's degree in psychology. Dr. Bowden is also a life coach, motivational speaker, former personal trainer and author of the award-winning book, Living the Low Carb Life.  For more information, click here.]

For more great articles like this delivered to your inbox, subscribe to our free natural health newsletter!