An accumulating body of evidence suggests that this translates into health benefits for those who consume cocoa or dark chocolate with a cocoa content of 60 percent or more. Benefits have been seen in endothelial function, a measure of blood vessel health, blood pressure, insulin levels, and serum lipids.

This is not the case for milk chocolate, which contains potentially harmful saturated fats, or candy bars that dilute cocoa with a long list of other ingredients.

Dark chocolate may be conferring vascular benefits via several pathways.

The miner that survived thus far is younger than everyone else, and his body might be more resistant to that oxygen deprivation if it did occur.

One possibility is that the administration of oxygen displaced carbon monoxide from his blood and so it's in his body but we're [they're] not measuring it yet. Another possibility is that the temperature in the mine, about 55 degrees, can actually affect this blood test, which is challenging to do. And, of course, it's possible, that one miner had a working oxygen mask and was protected from the carbon monoxide to which the other miners were exposed and there may have been a mix of gases.

Epidemic obesity is unquestionably a health crisis in the United States, and for that matter, in much of the world. But it is a crisis in slow motion, one that has crept up on us over years, and even decades.