Professor Licia Iacoviello

The PhysOrg article Dark chocolate: Half a bar per week to keep at bay the risk of heart attack said

Maybe gourmands are not jumping for joy. Probably they would have preferred bigger amounts to support their passion. Though the news is still good for them: 6.7 grams of chocolate per day represent the ideal amount for a protective effect against inflammation and subsequent cardiovascular disease.
 
Researchers wanted to sweep all the doubts away. They took into account that chocolate lovers might consume other healthy food too, as wine, fruits and vegetables. Or they might exercise more than others people do. So the observed positive effect might be ascribed to other factors but not to cocoa itself. “In order to avoid this — researcher says — we “adjusted” for all possible “confounding” parameters. But the beneficial effect of chocolate still remained and we do believe it is real”.
 
“This study — says Licia Iacoviello, Head of the Laboratory of Genetic and Environmental Epidemiology at the Catholic University of Campobasso and responsible for the Molisani Project — is the first scientific outcome published from the Molisani Project. We consider this outcome as the beginning of a large series of data which will give us an innovative view on how making prevention in everyday life, both against cardiovascular disease and tumors”.

Licia Iacoviello, M.D., Ph.D. is Head, Laboratory of Genetic and Environmental Epidemiology, Research Laboratories, “John Paul II” Center for High Technology Research and Education in Biomedical Sciences, Catholic University, Campobasso, Italy. She has authored/coauthored over 130 publications.
 
Licia’s research areas include genetic and biochemical markers of inflammation, haemostasis and vascular function as risk of thrombosis; pharmacogenetics of thrombosis; gene-environment interaction in determining the risk of multifactorial disease (cardiovascular diseases, cancer, hypertension, obesity); Mediterranean diet (wine and olive oil), antioxidant and risk of thrombosis in populations and animal models of thrombosis; vascular function, thrombus formation and response to antithrombotic treatment in models of diseases predisposing to thrombosis; and experimental and clinical pharmacology of acute ischemic diseases.
 
She coauthored Alcohol Dosing and Total Mortality in Men and Women: An Updated Meta-analysis of 34 Prospective Studies, Inherited thrombophilia and stratification of ischemic stroke risk among users of oral contraceptives, Thrombotic complications in childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia: a meta-analysis of 17 prospective studies comprising 1752 pediatric patients, Pulmonary function and abdominal adiposity in the general population, Is being breastfed as an infant associated with adult pulmonary function?, and The challenges of cross-national research in primary health care across Europe. Read the full list of her publications!
 
Licia earned her M.D. (cum laude) in Medicine and Surgery, at the University of Naples, Italy, in 1986. She earned her Ph.D. in Genetic Epidemiology of Cardiovascular Disease at Leiden University, The Netherlands, in 1998.
 
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