A one-year, double-blind, controlled clinical study suggests cacao flavonoids and soy isoflavones can significantly improve biomarkers of CVD risk in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes. The trial, conducted by Peter J. Curtis, Ph.D., et al, funded by a U.K.-based Charity, Diabetes UJK, and supported by Frutarom Ltd., Israel, and cocoa and chocolate processor Barry Callebaut Inc., was published February 2012 in Diabetes Care. The study assessed the effect of dietary flavonoids on cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes on established statin and hypoglycemic therapy. The clinical trial consisted of 93 medicated postmenopausal women with type 2 diabetes. Subjects were randomly allocated to consume 27g/day (split dose) of flavonoid-enriched chocolate (Barry Callebaut ACTICOA chocolate containing 850mg flavan-3-ols [90 mg epicatechin] and 100mg of isoflavones [aglycone equivalents)]/day) or a matched placebo. At the conclusion, the combined one-year intervention with flavan-3-ols and isoflavones resulted in a significant improvement in biomarkers of CVD risk in postmenopausal, type 2 diabetic patients, compared to placebo. These data highlight the additional benefit of dietary flavonoids to standard drug therapy in managing CVD risk in this group of patients. — Frutarom, www.soylife.comNS