Make your heart smile with `healthy` choco pills

London: There's a new chocolate in town, which is healthy, calorie-free, and no fun at all. A new research has introduced chocolate in a pill.

The cocoa extract in the nutritional supplement, which includes the compound flavanols, is said to improve blood circulation and help keep a healthy heart, the Independent reports.

Sweet makers are making more of these supplements with the extract flavanols, while the world's leading manufacturer of chocolate and cocoa, Barry Callebaut is planning to release flavanols pills.

These pills have already been approved by European health authorities who have agreed that they help the health of the heart.

Callebaut, which supplies the chocolate for Magnum ice-creams, has said it will team up with French nutrition supplement maker Naturex to produce and sell an extract of flavanols.

Mars's website claims that if their own capsule containing flavanols, called CocoaVia is taken daily, it promotes good health as they encourage blood flow.

EU food safety officials have said that 200 milligrams of cocoa flavanols does improve the flow of bloody circulation.

In order to get 200 milligrams of flavanols, people would need to eat roughly two dark chocolate bars. This would mean consuming about 350 calories and 20 grams of fat. Or four bars of milk chocolate, which would mean around 900 calories and 50 grams of fat, says Mars.

The pills allow people to get a larger amount of flavanols, without the added calories and fat that makes chocolate so unhealthy.

CocoaVia has been available in America since 2010, and has led to smaller companies launching their own copy version of the supplement.