How cocoa reduces world

disease burdens -Ghanaian

anatomist

Written by Femi Ibirogba for Nigerian Tribune Newspaper

Tuesday, 17 September 2013

Professor of Anatomy, University of

Ghana Medical School, Accra, Ghana and foremost researcher/advocate of regular
consumption of natural cocoa, Frederick Kwaku Addai, in this interview with Femi
Ibirogba, enumerates the benefits of cocoa consumption. Excerpts:
WHAT are the advantages of consuming pure cocoa based on your research on
the health benefits of the crop?
First, it is important to clearly state what is meant by pure cocoa. Pure cocoa (preferably
called natural cocoa) refers to cocoa powder obtained through processing as follows. At
the farm gate, undamaged cocoa beans obtained from ripened cocoa pods are
fermented by best farm practices for about 7 days, sun dried with regular turning until a
fist can be pushed into a bag of the beans with minimal resistance. The dried beans are
sorted in a factory into comparable sizes to facilitate uniform roasting, cleaned from
foreign matter and damaged beans, sanitized with heat to kill microorganisms (mainly
bacteria and moulds) and roasted to a gritty consistency. Cocoa bean husks are then
removed (winnowed) from the roasted beans, and beans broken into nibs before being
ground into a smooth consistency. Owing to the high fat content (45-55%) of the cocoa
bean, the ground product is molten mass known as cocoa liquor.
Cocoa liquor is squeezed using hydraulic presses to extract the fat (cocoa butter)
leaving a very hard cocoa cake with fat content of 12-15%. Cocoa cake is broken up
and milled into powder by specially designed factory machines. The unsweetened
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powder thus obtained is pure or natural cocoa powder. It is designated as pure because
it is unsweetened and the cocoa liquor was not modified by various processes such as
alkalisation to enhance its aroma before pressing to produce cocoa cake and milling to
get cocoa powder. Therefore unsweetened natural or pure cocoa powder is different
from unsweetened alkalized or Dutch cocoa powder.
My studies have mainly involved natural or pure cocoa powder that has the highest
concentrations of all the dietary nutrients in the cocoa bean. The advantages of
consuming pure cocoa are best understood with reference to a remark by a renowned
scientist concerning the cocoa bean. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is credited
with the comment, Nowhere else has nature compressed such a store of the most
valuable nutrients into such a small space as it has with the cocoa bean. This also
explains why the maximum benefits are obtained by consuming pure unsweetened
cocoa that contains the highest amounts of the valuable nutrients in the cocoa bean.
The exact number of valuable nutrients in cocoa is not known, but estimated between
300-400. Out of this lot about 25 nutrients have been identified and their concentrations
variously determined. Among the known nutrients, cocoa has one of the highest food
concentrations of polyphenols, theobromine, magnesium, cocoa butter, tryptophan,
Manganese, Zinc, Chromium, Copper, phenylethylamine, anandamide, etc. It is
relatively easier to give the myriad benefits of cocoa consumption by the effects that
manifest rather than by the activity of each nutrient (since most of the dietary nutrients
potentiate or make other nutrients work better anyway).
The common denominator for the advantages of consuming pure cocoa is its positive
influence on health and well-being. Health may be compromised, impaired, or lost by
processes that affect pre-natal development (causing congenital anomalies or
disorders); infection, inflammation, and immunity (causing diseases and/or deformities).
The latter may result in neurodegenerative conditions (such as Parkinsons and
Alzheimers diseases) and neoplasms (including cancers). It is almost unbelievable that
nutrients in pure cocoa promote healthy prenatal development, fight infection, modulate
inflammation and immunity for better health, and protect against neurodegenerative and
neoplastic diseases. In cases where these diseases exist, taking pure cocoa regularly
with prescribed medication promotes better outcomes.
When pure cocoa is consumed daily, and combined with good lifestyle choices of
healthy eating and regular exercise, the following advantages would be obtained:
prevention of hypertension, or control it when taken alongside medication; prevention of
diabetes mellitus, or control it when taken in addition with medication; prevention of
malaria illness, or minimize severity and promote speedy recovery when taken with
combined treatment medication; promotion of restful sleep, and increase exercise
tolerance and vitality; optimization of heart, lung, intestine, muscle and brain functions;
improvement of sexual performance in both sexes, and promotion of firmer penile
erections (in males presents potent antidote to erectile dysfunction (impotence), works
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well than medications and being natural has no known adverse effects); strengthening
immune system via aroma and nutrient content; minimization of occurrence of all
cancers, particularly colon and prostate (direct anti-cancer effects have been shown in
some published studies with other cocoa products); improvement in mental alertness
and ability to handle stress; keeping one younger longer, when combined with healthy
eating and regular exercise.
More specifically, the following advantages are obtainable from daily consumption of
pure cocoa powder as a hot beverage: reduction in high blood pressure and
maintenance of normal blood pressure by promotion of frequent urination. This makes
pure cocoa good for people who need rapid fluid elimination such as those with weak
heart or damaged liver. However, people drinking pure cocoa beverage must drink
water frequently to avoid constipation. They should also take precautions when
travelling long distances because they may need to stop and urinate about every two
hours or so. Anecdotally people with early signs of compromised kidney function such
as proteinuria (excessive presence of protein in urine) have reported total recovery of
normal function with absence of proteinuria, when they consumed pure cocoa;
promotion of blood circulation in kidneys which improves their functions, including
eliminating toxins and maintaining normal blood pressure; mopping of harmful free
radicals by potent antioxidant activity, which reduces occurrence of conditions
associated with damaging activity of free radicals. Included are diseases such as
Parkinsons, Alzheimers, Arthritis and cancers, as well as ageing problems such as skin
wrinkling, failing eyesight, graying of hair and memory impairment.
Also included are high magnesium content and promotion of nitric oxide (NO)
production in the body open arteries and make them less stiff (sclerotic) with age, to
prevent stroke, heart attack, male sexual weakness and breathlessness resulting from a
weak heart; promotion of insulin production by making cells of the pancreas healthy and
minimizing glucose-dependent deterioration (glycation) of proteins so that diabetic
patients fare better on medication. Research has shown that individuals drinking pure
cocoa produce higher amounts of insulin that have better activity than they did before
cocoa consumption; reduction in total serum cholesterol, whilst increasing good (HDL)
and reducing bad (LDL) cholesterol. It also makes LDL cholesterol less able to undergo
(oxidation) the change that makes them killer molecules in the body (Triglycerides are
also low in people regularly drinking natural cocoa); high magnesium content and other
nutrients modulate hormonal imbalances associated with health problems that may
accompany menstruation and menopause; bioactive compounds in cocoa such as
tryptophan promote alertness, lessen pain and promote a natural feeling of well-being
(Tryptophan and like nutrients reduce anxiety by producing serotonin, which helps with
stress control); Nutrients in cocoa help the body to produce endorphin, the natural
painkiller and have proven anti-inflammation activity. This advantage has almost
miraculous manifestation in people who are bedridden or confined to wheelchairs by
arthritis. They are able to move freely and regain ability to walk unassisted after a few
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months of regularly consuming natural cocoa; by a combination of activities, cocoa

nutrients improve fertility in both males and females.
Other benefits of consuming pure cocoa are: Theo bromine found in natural cocoa is the
best known treatment for persistent cough and hiccups. Theo bromine has antioxidant,
body fat burning, and diuretic effects. Asthmatic and sickle cell patients who drink pure
cocoa everyday fare better. There is slowing down of normal biological wear and tear
that underlies ageing and associated increased physical weakness. High antioxidant
content of natural cocoa combines with anti-inflammation activity of other nutrients to
minimize damage caused to the liver by excessive alcohol intake and malaria infection.
By promoting blood supply to the brain and maintaining right balance of brain
chemicals, pure cocoa boosts brain power.
In a nutshell, cocoa contains many valuable nutrients that afford anyone who consumes
it regularly (daily!!!) incomparable health benefits.
It is advocated that everyone must cultivate the taste for unsweetened pure cocoa right
from infancy to prevent them from getting diseases such as hypertension, diabetes
mellitus, malaria, debilitating arthritis, and age-related diseases.
It is estimated, for example, that if we can encourage the youth to regularly consume
pure cocoa, the number of adults with hypertension and/or diabetes may be halved in
about 10 years. It is emphatic that everyone of any age can benefit from regular pure
cocoa consumption. I have intentionally overlooked the economic benefits of pure cocoa
consumption to the economies of cocoa producing countries, but that potential could
almost alone elevate living standards considerably.
Why are Africans not interested in consuming this all-important cocoa, because
available data indicates that most of the produce is shipped abroad?
The history of how cocoa came to West Africa indicates that it was seen only as an
export crop to earn foreign exchange for producing countries. Most cocoa farmers have
little information on what the cocoa they produce is used for, and as long as they get
paid for their produce, honestly they do not care. African governments have also never
seriously addressed the issue of even local processing to add value to the exported
beans, let alone think or strategize about how to increase local consumption. For
instance, I grew up growing cocoa on my fathers farms, and did not ever taste any
chocolate until age 11; when as part of celebrations of the second republic of Ghana
some chocolate was distributed in my school. So firstly, there is low consumption in
African countries because historically farmers and our governments have focused only
on the income earned from the crop and not its consumption.
There is also the cost of the largely sweetened cocoa products that have been available
until recent years. Given the low purchasing power of most people in Africa, and the
choice of one meal a day for most of our citizens, a sweet snack is not an option.
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The biggest problem, however, is ignorance. I have been blessed to stumble on the
health benefits of cocoa by divine serendipity. My research team was screening foods
for their potential to cause tooth decay, sometime in 1994. We gave study participants
Golden Tree chocolate manufactured in Ghana and reputed to be the worlds best. Our
expectation was that because chocolate contains sugar and sticks to teeth it should
show the potential to cause tooth decay. Surprisingly, our results showed that chocolate
rather had opposite effect and therefore protective of teeth against decay. Even when
we warmed the chocolate so that the participants could not chew it but only lick it, we
got the same results. In my quest to find an explanation for this unexpected finding, I
ended up reading a lot about the history of cocoa consumption and the dietary
components of cocoa.
With heightened interest, I searched for more information and conducted many studies
to confirm some of my hypothesized benefits based on the dietary components of
cocoa. Contemporaneously, a group in the US had gone to the original Amerindian
Islands off the Coast of Panama in Central America to study the Island-dwellers who
had been reported in a 1944 study to have low susceptibility to hypertension and stroke.
By combining information from their publications and others around the world, with my
own research groups findings, I accumulated a lot of unbelievable benefits that cocoa
consumption could give. Initially, I wondered whether what we had found in research
would be manifested in free living people; in other words, people who have not been
screened to meet the gold standard of research methodology.
My breakthrough came as strangely as my initiation into research on cocoas health
benefits. I had information in 2003 that my then 68-year-old father was dying of a weak
heart. His condition was not responding to Western medication and he collapsed
anytime he walked for a significant distance. At first, we simply asked him not to go to
farm, but then even when he only walked to his friends house, he would collapse on the
way and have to be carried home. As long as he stayed at home, he was apparently
okay. As a last resort, I sent him pure cocoa from the stock for my research and
instructed him on how to take it as a hot unsweetened beverage.
Having been a very meticulous school teacher for 35 years before he retired in 1995, he
followed my instructions carefully. After one month, he wrote to me saying: Your
discovery is 100 per cent correct. He had regained his strength, and had the added
bonus of not waking up four times to urinate in the night (perhaps as a result of benign
prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) which at the time had not even been detected). He is alive
today, ten years after his collapsing episodes and very well for his age. He drinks 3-5
cups of pure cocoa regularly without fail, and knows that he will start to have his
collapsing episodes when he stops taking cocoa for longer than a few weeks. His ocular
astigmatism that meant that he had to read with lenses (spectacles) since I have known
him as my father, has spontaneously resolved and he now can read without a pair of
glasses.
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When my mother passed away in 2008 (within two weeks of a small toe diabetic sore
that she failed to report for fear of amputation), my father re-married after one year in
2009 and now lives with my stepmother. On a lighter note, my sisters were aghast that
our father wanted to re-marry after our mothers death, having been married to our
mother as his childhood lover for 55 years. I told my sisters that no normal male drinking
pure cocoa as our father does can stay without assured sexual gratification, even if you
take away his need for companionship. I fully endorsed his remarriage!
What my fathers experience with pure cocoa did in 2003 was to embolden me to
commence public education in Ghana on the health benefits of cocoa consumption. I
have given countless presentations as Public lectures, radio and television
presentations, newspaper articles, and of course at Scientific Conferences. By 2006, I
had personally encouraged six local companies to package natural cocoa for sale, until
then it was not even available.
As people consumed pure cocoa, they would either call me or have their questions
routed through newspapers for my response; and I also received numerous anecdotal
benefits that I otherwise would not have known. This certainly, is true for the antimalarial effect which we have since validated by scientific experiments, and
corroborated by other investigators including some in Nigeria. So ignorance is largely
responsible for the lack of interest in consumption of natural cocoa in Africa.

How, then, can cocoa consumption be encouraged in Africa to maximize health

benefits of the product and reduce burden of diseases?
In answer to this question, I will present the recommendations I gave at my first public
lecture on health benefits of cocoa in Accra in 2004. These have been modified to
include information that has come to my attention since then. The following strategies
must be adopted at the national level to promote consumption of natural cocoa and
other good quality cocoa products.
Information must be widely disseminated indicating the compelling scientific and
anecdotal evidence that consumption of good quality cocoa products, in
conjunction with a healthy, balanced diet, and exercise, will produce golden
health for all ages.
It is also advocated that cocoa should be declared a national drink, and served to
official and domestic visitors, and at all official functions, the way tea is served in
Kenya.
There should be declared Cocoa Time mid-morning (10.30 -11.00 a.m.) and midafternoon (3.30-4.00 p.m.) nation-wide at which all workers take a cocoa break to
have a cocoa drink. This is along the lines of tea/coffee breaks in the U.K/USA.
People must be made thoroughly aware that every cocoa product may have
some health benefits, but the best is natural cocoa powder without added
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condiments or sweeteners. The bitter astringent taste in such cocoa indicates the
presence of the active dietary nutrients, so taste acquisition is advocated since it
takes about 2-3 weeks to become thoroughly accustomed to the natural taste
that delivers incomparable health benefits.
Cocoa drink dispensers or vending machines should be installed at vantage
points throughout the cities in (particularly in markets, churches, mosques, sports
stadia, and other places where people assemble in large numbers for long
periods).
The corollary of this recommendation is that lots of public urinals must be built at
all such places, because cocoa consumption promotes frequent and copious
urination.
Everybody, regardless of social status, must be educated to have at least one
cocoa drink every day.
All school going children, except for those who cannot take it on a doctors
advice, children must be taught to consume cocoa products to protect them from
developing hypertension and/or diabetes as adults.
The hospitality industry must be given free pamphlets to educate their patrons to
ingest chocolate after meals, because it will promote better digestion and prevent
damage to teeth by plaque acids which cause tooth decay.
Restaurants must boldly advertise the healthful benefits of cocoa, and offer it as
a first drink option after meals.
Airline industry must be brought in to advertise the health benefits of cocoa,
especially the natural preparation. They should be incentivized to offer it as the
beverage of choice for in-flight refreshment. It will protect from blood clotting
problems (that sometimes kill by deep vein thrombosis or DVT) and numbness
associated with long haul flights.
Sports industry must be educated that stamina and exercise tolerance improves
dramatically from regular drinking of cocoa.
Food processing companies must develop more varieties of cocoa products. For
instance roasting and processing reduces the antioxidant content of cocoa by
one third to one half, and to benefit seriously hypertensive or diabetic patients the
cocoa product must contain 60-70% cocoa mass. New products need to be
developed that have the highest antioxidant and/ or cocoa mass content.
Cocoa confectionery companies producing natural cocoa that has the highest
antioxidant content must be given tax incentives.
The Cocoa Producers Alliance (COPAL) cocoa day and the chocolate day (14th
February) must be properly orchestrated and coincide with abundance of cocoa
products on the market.
Input packages for cocoa farmers must now include natural cocoa powder for
their improved health and protection from malaria.

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Such CONSCIOUS promotion of local consumption will boost governments effort to

increase local processing of cocoa beans, while affording golden health for all who
patronize good quality cocoa products.
What are medical practitioners doing to create more awareness about cocoa
consumption?
Sadly, medical practitioners are doing very little because the information I am
disseminating has not found itself into standard textbooks or Medical Curricula yet. For
most of our medics, if it was not taught them in school or has not been recommended
by the World Health Organization, of some reputable Pharmaceutical Company, they
remain skeptical. Some progress has been made, and I find that older medical
practitioners not only recommend natural cocoa but actually are some of the regular
patrons. But we need not wait for the skeptical Medics; let us get our people to know the
truth about cocoas phenomenal health benefits and they will set themselves free from
the mental slavery that our educational system confers on some of our health
professionals.
Moreover, it is a fact that every truth has three stages of life, encompassing periods
when it is: ridiculed, vehemently opposed and accepted as known fact of life.
One cannot be so nave as to expect cocoas health benefits to circumvent these
stages, but in the information age that we are in and with the technological innovations
available, the length of the early stages must be abbreviated in terms of duration. This is
why your role as a newspaper is crucial in the drive to inform the public about the
remarkable health product that our people are ignorantly overlooking. This century
belongs to COCOA and PURE COCOA being the best cocoa must be consumed by
everyone alive in Africa. It is a sinful shame that cocoa farmers do not have the access
to the information and/or products to afford them the health benefits of their produce.
We must change this for the good of our people and to honour our Creator who has
graciously given us this divine crop.

With Compliments of the Author.

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