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As reported by major news outlets, a study allegedly claims that eating chocolate can make you slimmer: Here the report from CBS News

for the study, published in the March 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers examined more than 1,000 healthy men and women who were free of heart disease, diabetes and cholesterol problems. They were all enrolled in another study that measured the effects of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, but for this study researchers assigned them questionnaires that gauged how often participants chowed down on chocolate.

The researchers found that the participants - who were an average age of 57 - ate chocolate for an average of twice of week and exercised roughly 3.5 times per week. But the more frequent chocolate-eaters had smaller BMIs, a ratio of height and weight that's used to measure obesity.

Does anyone know about more details to this study? This claim sounds to me like typical wishful thinking: Any research that shows positive effects of, e.g., chocolate or alcohol, gets way more media attention than research showing the opposite...

Sam I Am
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Lagerbaer
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  • The [original article](http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/172/6/519) is behind a paywall, but a few details can be read [here](http://www.google.at/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=association%20between%20more%20frequent%20chocolate%20consumption%20and%20lower%20body%20mass%20index&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CEYQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.medscape.com%2Fviewarticle%2F760920&ei=vDRyT7XtMMf34QSH-pjzDg&usg=AFQjCNH6WZ_0tZA4DQuEpJYKmE9ufPKflQ) – Oliver_C Mar 27 '12 at 21:45
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    The quoted section claims correlation. The question title claims causation. They don't match. – Oddthinking Mar 28 '12 at 02:07
  • @Oddthinking I noticed that, but given that these were only paraphrases by the newspaper itself it's hard to judge whether this is the whole story. – Lagerbaer Mar 28 '12 at 03:59
  • Here's the study they are referring to. http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/extract/172/6/519 – Oddthinking Mar 28 '12 at 04:06
  • Added it to the article – Lagerbaer Mar 28 '12 at 04:07
  • BMI is a bogus statistic. People who are muscular but < 6% body can have a higher BMI than some men with 20%+ bodyfat and low muscle mass. I suspsect looking at the average age this study looked at people who had over 50+ years trained themselves to moderate their eating to avoid gaining weight. Those with naturally lower BMI did not have to moderate so the numbers look like you can eat more chocolate but the truth is some people gain fat others don't. Those that do but maintain a healthy weight have trained themselves to avoid overindulging in foods that put on fat. – Chad Mar 28 '12 at 13:04

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