You might think that, given the choice, most patients would prefer taking chocolate for their high blood pressure instead of popping a pill. But that isn’t necessarily the case, according to a letter to the British Medical Journal from a group of researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia.

While the scientists’ research suggests that the flavanol or polyphenol compounds found in dark chocolate help to lower blood pressure, they also found that a daily dose of 50 grams of chocolate (a little bigger than a regular-size Hershey bar) was “significantly less acceptable to patients” than taking a single tomato extract capsule.

Image by scaredy_kat via Flickr Creative Commons