As we get older, our bodies become more inflamed, increasing our risks of developing chronic disease and dying.

A large-scale study tracked people who took daily cocoa supplements for two years and found that body-wide inflammation stayed steady instead of rising - with the strongest effects in those who had higher inflammation at baseline.

In the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS) trial, daily cocoa extract supplements were linked to a 27 percent lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

Taking cocoa extract supplementation lowered C-reactive protein, a key marker of body-wide inflammation, by 70 percent after two years.

That drop corresponds to an estimated 7 percent to 23 percent lower risk of cardiovascular events, shifting participants from the "average-risk" range into the low-risk range for heart disease, while the placebo group remained in the average-risk category.

The Inflammation Connection

The study focused on C-reactive protein, or CRP, which typically rises about 5 percent annually with age and is widely used as a marker of body-wide inflammation. This process, dubbed "inflammaging" by researchers, fuels chronic diseases, frailty, disability, and premature death.

While the placebo group's CRP levels rose by about 5 percent per year, the cocoa group's dipped by about 3 percent—a change that wasn't significant on its own. However, when the two groups were compared across two years, cocoa significantly prevented the usual age-related inflammaging, keeping inflammation steady. These results came from a standardized 500-milligram cocoa flavanol supplement (including 80 milligrams epicatechin).

The findings suggest that cocoa may help protect the heart by lowering inflammation, a key driver of cardiovascular disease, Howard Sesso, associate professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital and lead author of the study, told The Epoch Times.

The cocoa group also showed a small but significant rise in IFN-γ. This messenger has potential antiviral effects, which may indicate protective effects, though its effect on health is still unclear and requires more study.

These results come from the COSMOS-Blood substudy, which followed nearly 600 generally healthy older adults (average age 70) with no history of cardiovascular disease or cancer through repeated blood tests over two years.