Whole grain foods ‘can cut heart deaths’

Eating whole grain foods reduces death rates from heart disease, but not cancer, a study has shown.

Scientists looked at data on more than 74,000 women and 43,000 men to investigate associations between whole grain consumption and death risk.

Over a period of more than two decades, a total of 26,920 deaths were recorded.

After adjusting for factors such as age, smoking and body mass index (BMI) that may have influenced the results, the researchers found that people who ate whole grains were less likely to die than those who did not.

Every daily 28 gram serving of whole grains was associated with a 5% lower total mortality.

Each serving of whole grains also cut deaths from cardiovascular disease by 9%. However, there was no evidence of an impact on cancer death rates.

Writing in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, the authors, led by Dr Hongyu Wu, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, US, concluded: “These findings further support current dietary guidelines that recommend increasing whole grain consumption to facilitate primary and secondary prevention of chronic disease and also provide promising evidence that suggests a diet enriched with whole grains may confer benefits towards extended life expectancy.”

Whole grains are cereal grains that are not refined and contain the “germ”, or seed embryo, which is packed with nutrients. Examples of whole grain foods include whole-wheat or rye bread, brown rice, whole grain pasta, and breakfast cereals such as muesli and shredded wheat.

Victoria Taylor, senior dietician at the British Heart Foundation, said: “This is an interesting study and reinforces existing dietary recommendations to eat more foods high in fibre.