Questão 35

Scientists followed 1,169 nondiabetic men and women who had been hospitalized for a first heart attack. The patients had a health examination three months after their discharge from the hospital, and researchers followed them for the next eight years. After controlling for age, sex, obesity, physical inactivity, smoking, education and other factors, they found that the more chocolate people consumed, the more likely they were to survive.

While the chocolate eaters in the study had a statistically insignificant reduction in the risk of death from any cause over the eight-year span, the reduced risk for dying of heart disease was highly significant. And it was dose-dependent — that is, the more chocolate consumed, the lower the risk for death.

Compared with people who ate none, those who had chocolate less than once a month had a 27 percent reduction in their risk for cardiac death, those who ate it up to once a week had a 44 percent reduction and those who indulged twice or more a week had a 66 percent reduced risk of dying from a subsequent heart event. The beneficial effect remained after controlling for intake of other kinds of sweets.

The co-author of the paper, Dr. Mukamal, said that data from other studies suggests that chocolate lowers blood pressure and this might be a cause of the lower cardiac mortality found in the study.

Adapted from http://www.nytimes.com, September, 2009.

According to the text, it is true to say that: