From the cardiovascular perspective, our results point to cocoa flavonoids as responsible for the HDL-cholesterol enhancing effect, with epicatechin and catechin having similar biological activity. Flavanols may exert this effect through different mechanisms, such as increased expression of scavenger receptor B type I (SR-BI), sterol regulatory element binding proteins (SREBPs), ATP binding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1) or apolipoprotein A1, among others (Martínez-López et al., 2014).