To help isolate the effect of the aspirin, Becker's team instructed participants to avoid flavonol-rich foods for up to two weeks before the tests -- foods such as chocolate, coffee, red wine, strawberries and pineapples.
But Becker [a confirmed chocoholic] knew some would cheat. In fact, many confessed they would probably be unable to give up their daily chocolate fix.
So, Becker and her team decided to use their subjects' craving to examine the impact of normal chocolate consumption on platelet activity.
They were not disappointed: 139 of the 1,200 participants cheated. They repeatedly confessed to the investigators and also kept food diaries. From both, Becker's team estimated the contraband's cocoa content and processed the data to isolate and quantify the effect of the chocolate on the participants' platelet activity.
Their measure of the clotting time for the "chocolate offenders," as Becker called them, showed it was significantly slower than for those who abstained. The difference averaged just seven seconds, but it was evidence that normal chocolate consumption has a positive impact.
More importantly, even after controlling for everything else these people ate, a urine test for the waste products of platelet metabolism showed a real platelet suppression effect from flavonol ingestion.
