OT Mars to make diabetes drug out of cocoa.
- From: "Zootwoman" <zootwoman@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 25 Jul 2005 22:28:12 -0700
Hey Miles, you get chocolate!!!!!! Cooolll.
Updated: 1:42 p.m. ET July 25, 2005
LONDON - Mars, the company that made its fortune satisfying chocolate
cravings, unveiled plans on Monday to develop medications that use a
component of cocoa to help treat diabetes, strokes and vascular
disease.
The privately held U.S. company that produces M&Ms and Mars bars said
it hoped to make medications based on flavanols - plant chemicals
with health benefits found in cocoa, as well as red wine and green tea.
Mars said it is in talks with large pharmaceutical companies for a
licensing or joint venture agreement to reproduce the compounds in
cocoa shown to improve blood flow.
"The mounting scientific evidence is extraordinary," said Dr. Norm
Hollenberg, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, which has
collaborated with Mars on cocoa research.
"This is a scientific breakthrough that could well lead to a medical
breakthrough."
Hollenberg was chairing a two-day seminar with 20 science and medical
experts in Switzerland to discuss the newest research on cocoa's
potential health benefits.
The specific cocoa flavanol molecules responsible for a blood-thinning
aspirin-like effect have been identified for the first time, Mars said.
Two clinical trials have also found that cocoa flavanols can boost the
flow of blood to key areas of the brain, raising the possibility of
treatments for dementia and strokes.
A new clinical study has shown flavanols' ability to improve
synthesis of nitric oxide by blood vessels could aid treatment of
vascular complications associated with long-term diabetes.
Mars has already launched CocoaVia, a nutrition bar containing 80
calories and specially preserved flavanols, which usually get destroyed
in cocoa processing.
The chocolate industry had to rid its products of a junk food image and
highlight cocoa's healthier qualities to encourage demand for a
produce mainly grown by poor African farmers, industry experts said at
a conference in Malaysia last week.
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