Dark chocolate, red wine will keep your honey heart-healthy this Valentine's Day

(MedicalExpress) - Forget the oysters and the champagne this Valentine's Day. If you want to keep your true love's heart beating strong, the real foods of love are dark chocolate and red wine, said Loyola University Health System preventive heart specialist Sara Sirna, MD.

"Red wine and dark chocolate taste great and have heart-healthy components," said Dr. Sirna, who also is a professor of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. "We can help fight heart disease and aging and perhaps even boost our romance for the evening by choosing our foods wisely."

Red wine contains resveratrol, which has been found to lower blood sugar and LDL, or "bad" cholesterol. It also is a source of catechins, which can help improve HDL, or "good" cholesterol, and polyphenols, which may prevent the formation of toxic plaque that leads to Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Sirna warns that you should drink in moderation by consuming no more than one 5 oz. glass for women and two 5 oz. glasses for men.

Dark chocolate with a cocoa content of 70 percent or higher is rich in flavonoids, which help prevent the plaque buildup in the arteries. It also boosts the immune system and contains cancer-fighting enzymes.