Anti-aging chocolate

Esthechoc, which claims to be the world’s first ‘beauty chocolate,’ will be presented next month at the Global Food Innovation Summit in London.

The 70% cocoa dark chocolate combines two antioxidants with pleotropic anti-ageing properties – cocoa flavanols and marine carotenoid astaxanthin. In fact, one 7.5g piece of Esthechoc claims to deliver the flavanol activity equivalent to 100g of dark chocolate, and astaxanthin to the level of 300g of wild Alaskan salmon.

After 3-4 weeks of daily intake by 50-60 year old volunteers, the chocolate was reportedly able to suppress markers of sub-clinical inflammatory damage in their blood, and reverse their age-related depression of microcirculation and blood supply to such peripheral tissues as subcutaneous fat and skin. This resulted in a boost of oxygen delivery to these tissues and restoration of their respiration.

The technology behind the beauty chocolate was developed by the Cambridge based company Lycotec and is to be commercialised by a spin off company, Cambridge Chocolate Technologies. It will be launched on the market next month in the UK and in some countries across Europe.