Now, beauty chocolate to make you look younger!

London: Move over, skin creams! A UK firm claims to have developed anti-ageing chocolate that can make you look younger. The chocolate, Esthechoc, which is described as the 'world's first Beauty Chocolate' is based on 70 per cent Cocoa dark chocolate. It represents a combination of two of the most powerful antioxidants with pleotropic anti-ageing properties - cocoa flavanols and marine carotenoid astaxanthin, according to its makers, Cambridge-based firm Lycotec.

The chocolate maker said that a small portion of the chocolate weighing just 7.5 grams can deliver the equivalent amount of flavanols to 100 grams of dark chocolate and of astaxanthin to 300 grams of wild Alaskan salmon. The efficacy of the chocolate over existing leading dark chocolate and food supplement products has been demonstrated in extensive clinical trials, its makers said.

"After 3-4 weeks of daily intake by 50-60 year old volunteers, the Beauty Chocolate was able to not only suppress markers of subclinical inflammatory damage in their blood, but also reverse their age-related depression of microcirculation and blood supply to such peripheral tissues as subcutaneous fat and skin," Lycotec said.

This consequently resulted in a significant boost of oxygen delivery to these tissues and restoration of their respiration - the essential physiological need in controlling and supporting skin health. Dr Ivan Petyaev, director of Lycotec and the inventor of the technology behind Esthechoc, said that clinical trials were conducted on over 3,000 participants between 50 and 60 years old.