Natural Cocoa Polyphenols

By Rob Taylor

June 30, 2025

The cacao tree is native to the Americas. It may have originated in the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America, current day Colombia and Venezuela, where today, examples of wild cacao still can be found. Cocoa was an important commodity in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.

The cocoa bean, also cacao bean or simply cocoa or cacao is the dried and fully fermented fatty seed of Theobroma cacao.  The cacao plant was first given its botanical name by Swedish natural scientist Carl Linnaeus  who called it Theobroma ("food of the gods").

Cocoa has numerous uses in the food industry. It is most commonly used to make chocolate, but is used for flavouring in drinks, cookies, ice creams, and other products. It is also now widely being used in the health supplement and  nutraceutical industries.

One example of a product used for health benefits is CocoanOX which uses a patented process to preserve the cocoa's natural content of cocoa polyphenols, more specifically flavonoids.

Cocoa flavonoids have been demonstrated to have numerous healthy properties associated with their antioxidant properties Most notably, they have been observed to lower cholesterol levels and blood pressure, promoting beneficial cardiac health. CocoanOX is one product that is designed to be mostly composed of highly bioavailable monomers and dimers, ensuring that the body is able to use these flavonoids.

 

by Rob Taylor, health and wellness editor