The ancient Mayans drank it for fertility, and the Spanish conquistadores ground it into paste and ate it to calm their stomachs and cure catarrh. Now the good news is that we are encouraged to eat chocolate to stay healthy. A London professor is prescribing chocolate to patients with cardiovascular disease to test whether the flavanols in it improve their condition, chocolate’s beneficial effects on blood flow being known. Mars is developing a chocolate-style medicine to be used to treat diabetes, strokes, dementia and heart disease. A few chocs daily may prevent fatal diseases or even improve sex drive. We wish.

All those people who give up chocolate for Lent, in the belief there is a healthy side-effect, will now need to dose up fast on Easter eggs. And Britain starts from a strong position as the largest per capita consumer of chocolate in Europe, though with the important caveat that most of what we buy is milk chocolate — good for obesity but not much else. But the switch from milk to plain varieties high in cocoa solids is not a painful one. The days when you had to endure cod liver oil or malt extract to stay healthy are over.

For those who can’t stand chocolate they can always turn to drink. The polyphenols lurking inside a bottle of claret have so many health-giving properties there is almost a case for intravenous injection — although we prefer old-fashioned methods. Red wine’s antioxidants help fight off heart disease and cancer. A glass or two a day helps fend off the ageing process and keeps people — particularly women — alert in old age. The usefulness of red wine in tackling bird flu is not yet known, but it has proved itself in improving immunity against the common cold. Last month scientists concluded that red wine helps fight gum disease, though stopped short of recommending that people clean their teeth with it.

So eat, drink and get healthy at the same time. If this advice, like so much medical lore, is reversed overnight the chocs and the red wine will at least keep your mind off the next health scare.