By Wendy Haaf
Bring on the brown rice and bran flakes: For older adults, a diet rich in whole-grain foods can help maintain healthier measurements of five risk factors for heart disease. That’s part of the take-away from a nearly 20-year large-scale study on the risk factors for heart disease.
Subjects who ate at least three servings of whole grains each day saw smaller average increases in waist size, systolic (top number) blood pressure and blood sugar, among other improvements, than did participants who ate a halfserving or less per day. (Examples of a single serving include one slice of whole-grain bread, and a half-cup of oats.) According to the study’s senior author, these findings suggest that, over time, diets rich in whole grains can help us manage some of the risk factors associated with heart disease, thus helping to protect us in the long run.
Source: The Journal of Nutrition
Photo by Wesual Click on Unsplash
