THE CHOCOLATE MYTH FACTORY.

"Chocolate and cocoa drinks, it turns out, contain an abundant dose of flavonoids, potent antioxidants that have been found most notably in red wine, green tea and fruits and vegetables, and have been associated with a decrease in the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke," reported The New York Times last October.

"Recent studies indicate that eating chocolate resulted in higher anti-oxidants, which are believed to fight cardiovascular disease by cutting cholesterol, a panel of scientists told the American Dietetic Association here Monday," noted The Deseret News of Salt Lake City in a dispatch from Denver last November.

"Research at the University of California, Davis, has found that chocolate carries high levels of chemicals known as phenolics, some of which may help lower the risk of heart disease," wrote the Copley News Service in a November 2000 article on "Simple Stuff that Can Add Years to Your Life."

A couple of Hershey bars can ward off heart disease? Welcome to 21st-century medical folklore, courtesy of the chocolate industry. After a brief visit to the Web site of the Chocolate Manufacturers and National Confectioners Associations (www.candyusa.org), you might also believe that a box of Godiva can stave off cancer or that a Lindt bar can delay aging.

Not content to merely dispel myths that have soiled chocolate's reputation, chocolate makers are out to recast their product as the ultimate health food ... even if that means creating new myths. And why not?

Sales of chocolate reached a high of $13 billion in 1998, the last year for which numbers are available. Some credit goes to the everywhere-you-turn availability of ever-expanding portions of candy--in vending machines, at movie theaters, in shopping malls, on ice cream, in milk shakes, and elsewhere. Instead of the usual 1 1/2-ounce candy bar, movie theaters hawk 3 1/2-ounce, 500-calorie behemoths. Instead of a single scoop of ice cream, you're more likely to see a waffle-sized megacone with M&M's, chocolate chips, and chocolate coating (on the cone, the ice cream, or both).

But chocolate is also getting a boost from the "growing body of research" that it's a wonder food. That research has largely been funded by the American Cocoa Research Institute (ACRI), an arm of the Chocolate Manufacturers Association. Is that a good PR strategy or what?

"This campaign that chocolate is a health food is just silly," says Barbara Rolls, an obesity expert at Pennsylvania State University and author of Volumetrics: Feel Full on Fewer Calories.

Here are a few of the latest myths about chocolate:

Myth #1 Chocolate helps prevent cancer.

"Studies have shown that chocolate contains a very high level of antioxidants, ranking with the top fruits and vegetables for antioxidant content," says the chocolate industry's Web site. While it doesn't say flat-out that chocolate prevents cancer, it notes that antioxidants "mop up" free radicals, which may be the "triggers" for cancer.

And it quotes researcher Penny Kris-Etherton of Pennsylvania State University, who says that "chocolate holds the promise of healthful benefits from its antioxidant content." (Kris-Etherton's studies on chocolate have been funded by the American Cocoa Research Institute.)

Truth: Chocolate had more "antioxidant capacity" than fruits and vegetables in a study by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But it's not clear whether the study's test-tube measure --the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity, or ORAC--reflects what happens in the body.

Then there's the larger question: Do more antioxidants automatically mean less cancer ... or any other illness?

"Antioxidants may be protective for some cell functions, but we can't leap ahead and conclude that antioxidants prevent cancer or any other disease," says Norman Krinsky, a Tufts University researcher who chaired the National Academy of Sciences' committee on antioxidants. "We just don't have the evidence."

Indeed, several studies that have looked for a lower risk of cancer in people who consume more antioxidants called flavonoids (from any foods, not just chocolate) have mostly come up empty.(1,2) And the only word for the chocolate industry's attempt to lump chocolate together with fruits and vegetables is chutzpah.

"We have hundreds of studies showing a link between fruits and vegetables and a lower cancer risk," says Krinsky. "We don't have any studies on chocolate and cancer in people."

Myth #2 Chocolate protects the heart.

"Even though it contains saturated fat, milk chocolate does not affect blood cholesterol levels," says the chocolate industry's Web site. But why stop there?

"Chocolate lovers can take heart in the growing body of research that shows this favorite food is packed with high-quality polyphenol antioxidants that scientists say may reduce the risk for developing cancer and heart disease, as well as offer some anti-aging health benefits," claims the site.

Truth: Stearic acid, one of the saturated fats in chocolate, doesn't raise cholesterol levels. But chocolate contains other sat fats--especially palmitic acid--that do. That's why chocolate raises cholesterol compared to monounsaturated fats like olive oil, which are considered neutral.(3)

"A number of studies from the 1950s and 1960s show that cocoa butter, the parent source of chocolate, raises blood cholesterol," says heart disease researcher William Connor of the Oregon Health Sciences Center in Portland.

Of course, industry-funded studies have found that chocolate doesn't raise cholesterol as much as butter ... but that's no surprise, since butter has no stearic acid. When it comes to blood cholesterol, chocolate is closer to lard than to butter.

And just because stearic acid doesn't raise cholesterol doesn't mean that it's harmless. "Stearic acid may promote blood clots and increase the risk of heart disease in other ways," says Connor.

Blood clots, or thrombi, trigger most heart attacks and strokes. But no one knows how to test whether a food causes thrombosis. Researchers look at how readily platelets clump together in test tubes and at blood levels of "factors" that lead to clots. But what those indicators mean isn't clear.

"In humans, there aren't definitive experiments that show what causes thrombosis," explains Connor.

So it may turn out that half of chocolate's saturated fat is harmless. But we're not there yet. And what about chocolate's heart-sparing polyphenol antioxidants?

Last August, the Journal of Nutrition devoted an entire supplement to chocolate (it was sponsored by the UK branch of candy manufacturer Mars, Inc.). In one study, two hours after ten people ate almost four ounces (that's 560 calories' worth) of M&M's SemiSweet Chocolate Mini Baking Bits, blood levels of a flavonoid called epicatechin--and the blood's "antioxidant capacity"--rose dramatically. But both levels fell back to normal four hours later.(4)

Does four hours' worth of increased antioxidant capacity mean anything to your heart ... and is it worth 560 calories? It's too early to tell.

"That trashy supplement to the Journal of Nutrition should never have been published," says Connor. "While nothing in it isn't true, the implications are a disservice to the public." And, as with cancer, it's a leap to assume that antioxidants in the blood translate into fewer heart attacks. For example, in the only large study done in the U.S., researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health found no lower risk of heart disease in men who consumed more flavonoids from their foods (they're mostly found in tea, wine, apples, and onions).(5)

"The evidence on flavonoids and heart disease isn't looking good," says researcher Alice Lichtenstein of the Jean Mayer U.S. Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tuffs University in Boston.

Myth #3 Eating chocolate doesn't make you fat.

"There is no scientific evidence that chocolate consumption is associated with obesity," declares Chocolate & Health, a brochure written by the Chocolate Manufacturers Association with "technical assistance" from the American Dietetic Association. (The ADA has received funding from the industry.) "No single food causes obesity or weight gain."

Truth: Of course no single food causes obesity or weight gain. Chocolate is one of many foods that have made the U.S. a contender for blubber capital of the world. Like any fatty food, it's calorie-dense--that is, it packs a lot of calories into a small volume.

"Like any food with high calorie density, it's very easy to overeat chocolate, so you have to watch portions carefully," says Pennsylvania State's Barbara Rolls.

And the way we typically eat chocolate makes us crave it even more.(6) "If you eat chocolate between meals, when you're most hungry, it rapidly satisfies your hunger and that reinforces your craving for it," she explains.

Her advice: "Break the cycle by having a delicious piece of chocolate at the end of a meal, when you're already satisfied, and you'll be less likely to overindulge. One fine Belgian chocolate has fewer calories than a full-blown dessert."

Myth #4 Chocolate fits into a healthy diet.

"What my research is showing is that you shouldn't think that chocolate is a bad food if it's eaten in the context of a good diet, but you can't go out and eat a lot of it," Penny Kris-Etherton told The New York Times last November.

Truth: Sure, there's room for a little chocolate nestled in among the fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, fat-free milk, skinless chicken breast, and grilled fish in a stellar diet. The problem is that many Americans eat chocolate in the context of a lousy diet, one loaded with cheeseburgers, pizza, french fries, fried chicken, ice cream, Cinnabons, croissants, doughnuts, and dozens of other fatty, fattening foods. We need chocolate like we need portable pats of butter to swallow between meals.

"There's no reason to take the enjoyment out of eating chocolate in moderate quantities," says Tufts' Alice Lichtenstein. But people shouldn't think that more is better. "No one would recommend adding chocolate calories to the diet, because we're consuming too many calories anyway," she adds.

The bottom line: If people think that they're eating chocolate for their health rather than for pleasure, says Lichtenstein, "the data gets thin."

CHOCK FULL OF ...

Calories should be the first concern of any die-hard chocolate-lover, because those calories are concentrated in such a compact quantity of food. And chocolate's saturated fat can cut into your 20-gram daily budget ... even if you stick with the (mostly) modest serving shown here. Many chocolate bars also come in king sizes, especially in movie theaters. (Within each category, the products are ranked from best to worst--least to most saturated fat, then total fat, then sugar.)

[CHART OMITTED]

(1) Amer. J. Clin. Nutr. 65: 1489, 1997.

(2) Arch. Inter. Med. 155: 381, 1995.

(3) Lancet 1: 943, 1957.

(4) J. Nutr. 130:2109S, 2000.

(5) Ann. Intern. Med. 125: 384, 1996.

(6) Appetite 32: 219, 1999.