dark chocolate diet weight lossA Japanese study published in Nutrition, suggested ingesting cocoa can prevent high-fat diet-induced obesity by regulating the expression of genes for fatty acid metabolism. Weight loss. A chocolate diet. A researcher's way of saying that chocolate, specifically unprocessed dark chocolate, was able to prevent obesity and weight gain. Naoko Matsui and the Japanese team of researchers was able to show, in animal subjects (rats), that not only did they have significant weight loss, but they had significantly lower blood lipid levels. Their analysis showed that in the (cocoa) chocolate diet group storage of fats was restricted and the fat burning mechanism was increased.

That supports the idea of chocolate being a diet tool for weight loss. The key here is to be sure that the chocolate doesn't also contain any processed sugars, vegetable fats, waxes, fillers. It would also probably help if the chocolate was cold processed, giving the other antioxidant benefits of the cocoa in your diet.

Once again, another reason to eat cocoa or healthy dark chocolate. Chocolate weight loss.

Here's the Results and Conclusion from their cocoa weight loss study in researcher talk:

RESULTS: Final body weights and mesenteric white adipose tissue weights were significantly lower in rats fed the real cocoa diet than in those fed the mimetic cocoa diet (P<0.05), and serum triacylglycerol concentrations tended to be lower in rats fed the real cocoa diet(P=0.072). DNA micro array analysis showed that cocoa ingestion suppressed the expression of genes for enzymes involved in fatty acid synthesis in liver and white adipose tissues. In white adipose tissue,cocoa ingestion also decreased the expression of genes for fatty acid transport-relating molecules, whereas it up regulated the expression of genes for uncoupling protein-2 as a thermogenesis factor.

CONCLUSIONS:Ingested cocoa can prevent high-fat diet-induced obesity by modulating lipid metabolism, especially by decreasing fatty acid synthesis and transport systems, and enhancement of part of the thermogenesis mechanism in liver and white adipose tissue.

In other words: chocolate as a weight loss diet tool.